- 2 months ago
Category
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Short filmTranscript
00:00I absolutely love the movie I'm so excited to talk to you about it oh fantastic and I'm just
00:06such a fan about what a just badass woman you are thank you jump right in um Maggie tell me about
00:15just getting involved in this movie in the first place I kind of have read a few interviews that
00:19you've done um about how important it is as a member of the AAPI community to reading scripts
00:27and making sure the roles are what you want to do so tell me exactly well I mean it's such a thank
00:34you for asking that it's such an important point because you know I I tell a lot of people too
00:38that in the community who are sort of like well minorities representation like what does that
00:43look like and and how do we do it um and I think one of the most important things we can do is um
00:49is we definitely have to put importance on what it is that we say yes to but I think it's more
00:54important what we say no to and in in order not to perpetuate cultural stereotypes or or ethnic or
01:02minority stereotypes we have to say I'm not willing to do that and if enough people are going to do
01:08that you're obviously it's impossible to be pigeonholed in that way so we have a responsibility in it and
01:13that's what I say to everyone is you know no one's a victim we're all good we all can make choices we can
01:20all make a difference for ourselves so if you can and you have the power to do that do it absolutely
01:25yeah how do you feel like Anna um you know really aligned with your ideals and and how you want to
01:33be in this industry yeah I mean first of all being able to portray my mother's Vietnamese so it's funny
01:39because it's like strong Vietnamese women it just all goes together it's like synonymous I mean you
01:43can like so to be able to you know play someone of of my own culture half my culture and um portray
01:51the strength of the women that I know in our culture was really cool um but also um you know it just um
01:59it's it's nice to be able to take on roles that are women that people would actually want to be or be
02:06in the same room with at least right um so you want to like do your culture proud in some way but
02:12also represent in a way where it's like I am not going to to play into these tropes that are that
02:18are so common and so typical and normally sort of put together by people who don't have any creativity
02:25right I'm going to work with creative people who who sort of know that um all of it's colorblind
02:32really I mean this is a creative field there's never been ever ever been color and creativity
02:37right besides literal color that people actually use other than that it never has been you know
02:43and and going back as far as you know um the art scene has really been alive in the United States
02:49it's like it's it's always been an artist and artist is an artist yes I could not agree more and
02:54just if you can act you can act yeah agreed agreed yeah totally um now working with Martin Campbell on
03:03this yeah um what an icon oh god totally what was that like for you to you know have him behind the
03:10camera and just be able to direct you I mean surreal because I I I'm such a fan of his work and I
03:18really admire him so much as a director and and funnily enough I think that Martin really enjoys um
03:24these independent you know we weren't um it's not a Bond movie so it's not you know it's not a studio in
03:31that way so we're independent as it were for for this film Foreigner that he did with Jackie just
03:36finished a movie with um Liam Neeson just just recently he's editing right now but he um he's
03:42he was telling me that he really enjoys sort of the the independent route just because there are less
03:47cooks and he's really allowed to be to make the movie he wants to make and I feel like with the
03:52protégé the reason why it's so enjoyable is that I really felt that too I mean for myself and Martin
03:57and Michael and Sam we we really did feel like we were making the movie we wanted to and that
04:01people trusted us enough where we didn't have so many people coming in and trying to step on
04:06everyone's toes and I think that freedom um made Martin really happy and I think made him behind
04:11the camera just a more enjoyable director having an experience where he felt like that freedom was
04:16his yeah and what an epic you know trio to have oh thanks thanks for including me in that
04:23you lead it you're the you're the top of the trio thank you thank you what was it like being able to
04:32kind of also bounce off of Samuel L Jackson and then share these scenes with Michael Keaton
04:37incredible guys in Hollywood totally and who bring totally different things to the film
04:43and whose relationships uh are are very different right because you could have a a movie with two
04:48men and where it's like a love triangle right and it was like trying to do the same thing whereas like
04:52we have these dynamics that um you don't often see on screen that were were really well fleshed out by
04:58our writer um who kind of kind of saw you know these worlds as being two two very very different worlds
05:05with two two incredibly different men um and um and he just he just nailed it with the writing
05:11he kind of really nailed like obviously we brought what we wanted to bring to it and
05:15there was a different flavor as as the actors were signed on to the film and we knew who who was
05:20actually going to be playing them but but really truly like uh you know with Sam you know we we wanted
05:27there to be an easy humor and an easy way about the way they spoke to each other and we also wanted
05:33there to be an unspoken thing that was really unbreakable between the two of them something
05:41where you know like they give their lives for one another in a second but at the same time still
05:47allowed each other to be exactly who they were and never never tried to change that person right
05:52and I think those are the relationships that truly um can develop very deeply because no one's
06:00trying to control the outcome and I really felt that with them yeah um and you know Anna has a
06:06really dark past and yes you kind of said that she compartmentalizes these parts to then do her job
06:14totally yeah yeah how did you kind of want to play into that as an actor and what did you want to
06:21bring to the character to show that to the audience well for her to even be in the world right she has to
06:26I mean she's somewhat undercover in her normal life right if you think about it because the person
06:31that she is is uh as a professional expertly skilled in is the life that she lives with with Sam behind
06:37the scenes when they're working right and so when we were kind of creating her life I mean she's
06:43obviously was well educated she was well cared for all of that she comes into the world with a love of
06:48literature number one number two she has an animal that was really important to us she has an apartment
06:54with things that she loves and I mean she she definitely she has she definitely has a life
06:59but it's a duality that's very real and that that you know we had little scenes in the movie where she
07:04comes home from that trip that first trip to Bucharest comes back to London and we we really want us to
07:11take that time where she walked into her space she sat down on her bed she closed her eyes and just
07:16had to breathe in just have that moment like okay I'm back I'm back in this mode because I came from
07:22this mode right and that that is the the existence that she lived but on the flip side of what she
07:27does I really wanted the audiences to see who she could have been what what she could have been had
07:34she lived this normal life and and not been through what she'd been through right she's a nice friendship
07:39with the woman who works in the store with her you know she's got her animal she does very normal
07:43things like I'm out of town hey can you watch my cat yeah very normal things I mean this is a person
07:49who's worth a lot of money and who has a lot of resources and but she still moves and do these
07:55normal things and I think that for her that is really the the thing that really equalized her and
08:02what she wanted to feel I think she wanted all those things to be to be very real to her and that's
08:07why she lived them in that way right definitely um and your stunts that you do um you know just
08:15I mean how did you prepare for that like were you sore oh yeah oh my goodness yes I mean uh
08:25we you know normally there there's an amount of prep time I would say normally I probably start
08:30training about two months out um on this one I didn't have that luxury which sucked but you know
08:38at the same time you know sometimes you don't get that but what you do is you draw from all your
08:42experience and you kind of take your muscle memory and you throw it into the arena and you go okay
08:46well you know let me just uh let me just pull from what I know and so I was a little scared jumping
08:51into the action because it was so big and I had gotten the pre-visuals earlier and so I was running
08:56through some of the fights on uh that were being rehearsed by our doubles and I was like oh oh wow
09:02there's a lot to memorize here there's a lot to go so I started I started um kind of going into it
09:08you know when I did or was able to jump into the physicality once we got to Romania um in five
09:15minutes I was like all right I got it I got this I'm back I'm back you know but you always have to
09:18have that moment where you go oh god it's been a minute and now I'm gonna go back into this and
09:23I I hope I can still do this like is this gonna be okay and um I totally have those moments and
09:29because I did it was nice to be able to prove to myself like no no you have enough experience under
09:33your belt to where you're gonna you're gonna be able to jump back into this yeah and it's so
09:37choreographed and it's just so you know the timing is is so timing is everything yeah um did you guys
09:44I I know that it had started filming like January 2020 so you had to pause yes yeah we we paused mid
09:51about mid-March um we every country we were filming in shut down as we were leaving literally the day we
09:58were leaving so COVID shut us out of Romania on time shut us out of London on time and then we had to get
10:05back to LA to regroup because we were supposed to film in Asia and but obviously the height of the
10:09pandemic was happening at that time over there and and then Europe was obviously coming up and so um
10:16we had to lay low kind of in LA for a little bit and they were editing which gave them some time to
10:21kind of sit with the movie which was I think a little bit nice for them and then um we ended up
10:25obviously never being able to we did send a crew I mean Martin and the crew did go to Vietnam they did
10:31shoot there but Michael and I couldn't because the risk was too high obviously so we ended up going
10:36back to Europe um at the end of the summer August September to finish up in Europe wow and was that
10:42your first time like back onto set yes exactly that was my first I've shot a pilot for a show that I
10:48have coming out later since then um but that was my my first like you know jumping back into like
10:54mass band-aids and blah blah blah and all these things testing all of it and it was just like wow
10:59everything is so hard now so it's just no ease in anything that we because the job's already hard
11:06you know you work from 12 to 16 17 hours a day a lot of jobs are just like already difficult you
11:11know you go out there in the world and you're like okay I gotta do my job and now we have to do it
11:15with all of this all these extra things I just can't even imagine everything from like
11:20you know the hospitals law enforcement this that I mean my god how much harder this has made
11:25everything for everyone absolutely I know and and speaking of that pilot too yeah so you had
11:32filmed that back I think December scene uh for Fox god I can't even remember when we filmed it I
11:38think we filmed it what month are we in what is it August oh I think we filmed it this year we filmed
11:43it this year in um February or March I think it was supposed to go in January and then and then it
11:49couldn't because right things whatever they tightened it up again and then it opened up again you know
11:54so I think we I think we did it in February or March something like that okay yeah so pivoting
11:59is coming out yes next month and tell me just a little bit briefly what drew you to that role
12:05um and you know how you literally pivoted from playing a right it's so true I know it's a real life
12:13um I you know they I did a movie a comedy called The Argument it was this tiny little movie that we
12:21did that we shot at the director's house in LA and I had re-teamed up with um this actor Dan Fogler
12:27who I'd done a movie called Balls of Fury with like back in the day it's other comedy that we did
12:31so Dan and I teamed up with on this movie The Argument and the script was so funny and it was just
12:36like so dry and this kid Robert Schwartzman directed it and um I was such a great time so it came out on
12:42Netflix we were supposed to try beer uh premiere at Tribeca we couldn't because the pandemic so
12:47they streamed it on Netflix and then the the creator of Pivoting was at home and so it was like oh what's
12:53this movie and saw it and was like oh my god that's the character I wrote that I haven't been able to
12:58find for a year they'd never cast my role um they'd cast the other two roles and my role is just sitting
13:04there and I guess they'd brought in a bunch of people to read and they were like no and she just was
13:09like we're not there yet I haven't found the person who's like a big enough a-hole like to play this
13:14character and um and and so she sees me in the argument she's like oh my god it's her it's there
13:22she is and so I I got a call and they were like we've got this comedy and this character is very
13:28specific and she was like I wrote it for a person who really is like a very dry sort of like does not
13:36and I'm like ah okay and she's like and then I saw your role in the argument and I just knew it
13:41was you and so and so that's how it just kind of came to be it was and so I read the script I said
13:45all right send scripts and they sent it and it was hysterical I mean this woman she doesn't what I
13:50love about her she doesn't write jokes you know everything is sort of circumstantial it's it's it's
13:55the dark that makes it funny I mean it's a comedy about losing their best friend and like how women in
14:01their 40s have to go oh great our perfect friend died and and we are you know three very imperfect
14:08women who like didn't even live close to an amazing life like she did why are we still here and if we
14:14are still here like what do we do about our lives because every single one of them is unhappy and so
14:20they're trying to figure out you know how to do it right and how to make it work and uh it's a great
14:27show again just great writing and just hysterically funny amazing well I definitely can't wait to
14:33watch thank you and I can't wait for everybody to see the protege oh me too this week Friday long
14:40time coming it is it has been a long time coming thanks for saying that because we we wanted this
14:44to come out in theaters we made it for the the big screen and it's coming out on the big screen and
14:49I think for us that's been the biggest gift with all of this amazing well I can't wait for people to
14:54be able to see it thank you so much thank you so much and you I appreciate you have a great day of
15:01course bye
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