00:00I fell in love with making films when I was a kid.
00:04I got the camcorder in my hand.
00:07Looking through that lens, people looked at me differently.
00:21I showed my parents the video that I made of our vacation and they started to cry watching it.
00:25And for the first time I felt heard.
00:27For the first time I felt like I could express myself.
00:30That stuck with me and from then on I was all in.
00:33Doing wedding videos, bar mitzvah videos, you name it.
00:35As soon as I got out of film school, I got into the business.
00:38My short film got a lot of attention in the town.
00:41I was pair play on Bye Bye Birdie at Sony.
00:44So I got involved in the business very young.
00:47But I didn't make my first movie until five years after that.
00:49So during that five year period it was really hard.
00:51I'm on the bench of an NBA team.
00:53I need two minutes to go prove myself.
00:55And my managers, who are still my managers today, sent me a bunch of stuff.
00:59And they said, hey this is a sequel to a dance movie but it's direct to DVD.
01:03And I was like, oh I don't do direct to DVD guys.
01:05I'm a studio filmmaker, remember?
01:07That's how I got into this.
01:08And I called my mom and she said, well when did you become a snob?
01:11If you're a true storyteller, you can tell it in any medium.
01:14And that advice changed the rest of my life.
01:16I said, okay I'm going to make the best damn direct to DVD dance movie sequel of all time.
01:20And it's a new star!
01:26Break!
01:34Break!
01:35Boom!
01:36Boom!
01:37Boom!
01:38Boom!
01:39Break!
01:40Into a beat down the street like water.
01:42My G look good but she ain't no teller.
01:44Shut up, you talk too much, you get crushed.
01:46I'll be right, get turned from down to death.
01:48That's us all day, homie, don't run up.
01:50Cause my crew so tough, like a Tonka truck.
01:52Lean back with a T-set.
01:54Going into a subculture, learning about that.
01:56And people think, oh you're a dancer, because I did the Step Up movies.
01:59I love that, because I'm not a dancer.
02:01But I became that for that moment.
02:04I'm going to become a Justin fan.
02:05I want to find out how they discovered him.
02:08And so, Adam goes, you have to talk to one person to get the job.
02:12I was like, oh who?
02:13Oh, Scooter Braun.
02:14So I had my conversation with Scooter.
02:16And he was like, okay, are you ready to do this?
02:18I was like, I think this is a rocky story.
02:20I think this is the first time that teenagers got to choose their idols from being online.
02:26You could see their first comment on his very first video.
02:28You could watch it grow.
02:30Digital fingerprints.
02:31So we can make a story that's not just a concert film.
02:34It's a story about a generation of people choosing their idol.
02:37And the person at the middle of this.
02:39I've been a fan of him from when he posted his first video.
02:41And I'll be his fan till he posts his last video.
02:49You hear these stories, how tough it is for adults.
02:51He's 16, and he's doing it all on his own.
02:54The first time we met, he almost passed me by.
02:59Security's early.
03:05They're all dead.
03:06There's only one man who could authorize a strike like that.
03:10And I voted for him.
03:14You're insane.
03:15It started to itch at me.
03:16Like, when am I going to do my own thing?
03:18What is something that I need to make for myself that scares the hell out of me?
03:22And what scared me the most was my own cultural identity crisis.
03:27Of exploring what it means to be Asian American.
03:30And I had gotten this book, Crazy Rich Asians.
03:33I saw the opportunity because every character in that was someone I could pinpoint in the world.
03:37Whether it was Gemma Chan, or Ronnie Chang, or Jimmy O. Yang, or Michelle Yeoh, or Constance.
03:43We could define what's beautiful in our culture.
03:46We could define what it means to be split between cultures.
03:49And this Asian American character, Rachel Chu, in the middle of this, was going to Asia for the first time.
03:54And to me, that was my experience.
03:57Going to Asia for the first time and feeling like, oh, is this my homeland?
04:01And maybe being convinced of it for, like, two days.
04:04And then realizing, oh, they see me as a foreigner, too.
04:07Didn't think anyone was ever going to see this movie.
04:09And luckily, people did.
04:11A highly anticipated new movie that has Hollywood buzzing.
04:14And everyone else, too.
04:15Crazy Rich Asians.
04:16Crazy Rich Asians is breaking records.
04:18Crazy Rich Asians had big expectations when it opened last week.
04:22It did even better.
04:241.2 million.
04:27The Nick you're dating is Nick Young?
04:28Yeah, you guys know them or something?
04:30Hells yeah.
04:31They're just the biggest developers in all of Singapore.
04:34Damn, Rachel.
04:36It's like the Asian Bachelor.
04:41They're talking about kicking out all the dreamers.
04:44It's time to make some noise.
04:48We had to assert our dignity in small ways.
04:52Shh.
04:53Just listen.
04:54I'm a huge fan of Wicked.
04:56So I come from the perspective of a fan.
04:58I know the areas that I need to protect.
05:00So I had no...
05:01I didn't have to translate anything between me and the fans.
05:04I knew.
05:05The hardest part was, what do I wish was there?
05:08Daily Zooms, three or four hours a day,
05:10where we would go through every line of the script,
05:14of the Broadway script,
05:16and the current movie script, which wasn't quite there yet.
05:20And we would read every line.
05:22And they would tell me why he wrote the lyric this way.
05:26Or how did the number end up this way?
05:27What were the past things they've tried?
05:28And so we'd put these little divot points.
05:30And the amount of numbers you have to cut to get the story in
05:33is just not plausible.
05:35It's just not...
05:36You want all the songs.
05:37So let's split it into two.
05:39Commit to that.
05:40We have to make sure that that movie is emotionally fulfilling,
05:42so it doesn't feel like we're stopping in the middle of a story.
05:45She came in as Ariana Grande,
05:47which has its own aura.
05:49And I think she had a higher mountain to climb.
05:51Wicked is too big to have Ariana Grande,
05:53who's really big, to then sit on top of it.
05:56It's just too many competing things.
05:59And does she really want to commit to a Galinda?
06:02This is a very difficult role.
06:04You have to be funny.
06:05You have to be a great actor.
06:07You have to be obviously able to sing.
06:09She can handle those parts.
06:10But can she be intimate and let us in?
06:12Also, you have this amazing, iconic Galinda in Kristen Chenoweth.
06:18So you can't do an imitation,
06:20but it has to be the Galinda that was sort of built.
06:24This is skilled, high-craft stuff
06:29that takes a lot of experience to do.
06:31There was no way Ariana Grande,
06:34who had never led a movie, could do this.
06:36And when she came in, she committed.
06:41But she has all her Ariana Grande makeup on.
06:44Let's see if she'll come in with no makeup.
06:46Next time she came in, all makeup gone,
06:49and she was in it.
06:50She's so funny, and she's so interesting.
06:52She's like she's from another planet.
06:54And she's doing Galinda, but not imitating.
06:57Then we kept bringing her back the next time.
06:59Again, she's the most interesting person in the room.
07:01And the next time, every time, you're just like,
07:04the only Galinda you want to see is her.
07:06And is she really winning this role?
07:08So by the end, it was very, very clear.
07:11But when she showed up, day one, she was Galinda.
07:13Her voice was different.
07:14The way she walked was different.
07:16When she put on the blonde wig, she was different.
07:18When she put on the dress, it was different.
07:20She inhabited this character.
07:22I have never seen anyone change like that.
07:25Elphaba, you can room with Miss Galinda.
07:28Popular.
07:30I know about popular.
07:32Oh, I saved you some space, by the way.
07:34Do you really think this is fair?
07:35I do not.
07:36I was promised a private suite.
07:38But thanks for asking.
07:40The great thing about Hollywood in the past
07:43has been that it's run by mavericks,
07:46artists who are rebels and troublemakers.
07:49And they're willing to say things
07:51and release things that are controversial
07:54and that cause dialogue.
07:56And through that,
07:59comes some sort of new perspective
08:01on something that we didn't know we needed to hear
08:03or maybe even wanted to hear.
08:05So I miss those days of that.
08:08I hope to just keep going
08:10and telling stories that bring joy
08:14and optimism, not naivete,
08:17but re-explore beauty,
08:19re-explore the American dream,
08:21re-explore ambition,
08:23re-explore what a hero can look like,
08:25what a villain can look like,
08:27so that we have new perspectives
08:29on these classic things
08:30that are part of our human experience.
08:46© BF-WATCH TV 2021
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