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“Joy Ride” marks the 32-year-old Park’s first time in a lead role since she appeared in “Thoroughly Modern Millie” for her high school’s musical. In the film, Park’s Audrey is an adoptee who was raised by White parents and has no connection to her biological parents’ culture. A business trip to China with her starving-artist best friend Lolo (Sherry Cola), soap actress college roommate Kat (Stephanie Hsu) and Lolo’s K-pop-obsessed cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) quickly turns into a quest to find Audrey’s birth mother. High jinks ensue in a comedy that has parallels to “Bridesmaids” and “Girls Trip,” but with striking cultural specificity, such as eating Cheetos with chopsticks.
Park, who is of Korean descent, grew up much like Audrey, as an overachiever surrounded by White people in Glendale, Calif., and Ann Arbor, Mich. After a battle with leukemia when she was 15, she eventually got her big break, and a Tony nomination, playing Gretchen Wieners in the Broadway adaptation of “Mean Girls.” While she’s amassed a following through “Emily in Paris,” this year feels like Park’s time to break out, in juicy parts (including jealous, conniving Naomi in Netflix’s “Beef”) that expand the kinds of opportunities Asian Americans usually get in film and TV.
“I was so blown away by when I first got the script [for ‘Joy Ride’], because I’ve never read something so creatively funny and raunchy and truly just going for it, not only for Asian people, but just in general,” Park said. “I was like, ‘Oh my god. I didn’t even know that other people had these same experiences.’”
Spoilers for “Joy Ride” ahead. Proceed at your own risk!
Q. I know that the movie stemmed out of director Adele Lim [who wrote “Crazy Rich Asians”] and the writers, Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao [who met as writers on “Family Guy”], hanging out together and wishing they could see a comedy featuring Asian women who talked about sex the way that they did. Did you feel like the movie mimicked your life at all?
A: Oh, I’ve never taken a bazillion drugs on the train. But with the raunch, I’m shocked by how much of my family has gone to see it. And sent me a picture afterward of the poster! My grandmother, my aunt. I’m like, “What is happening?” My dad has watched it multiple times. He’s gone to different screenings by himself. But I think for them, besides me being their daughter and them being proud, they just have never seen anything like it, especially [starring] Asian women. You know, getting just to swear a lot, the way we normally do. We really got to let loose.
Q: Did you warn your family ahead of time what to expect?
A: I didn’t tell them anything. Because I knew that if I said, “Hey, I have a threesome,” or whatever, they would be like, “Wait, what?” That’s very alarming, to hear that you’re going to see your daughter doing that on a big screen, but instead they got to see a whole story and see how that scene propelled it forward.
Q: Audrey, who’s never been with an Asian guy, gets into a threesome with two of them. Was the scene hard to coordinate?
A: That was super choreographed. We spent an entire day on that scene. I mean, I had to lay with my legs spread for about an hour with different camera angles. People are always like, “Oh my gosh, is it sexy to do that for an entire day?” And it’s just not at all. It was tricky because I was trying to make the intimacy stuff truthful, but also it had to be funny.
Q: How has life been since the movie opened?
A: I’ve been receiving such beautiful messages from family and friends from different chapters of my life. I think that this is the first time any of them have seen me get to play a fully fleshed-out character and they can see specifically how Audrey reflects something I maybe learned from them. For instance, I grew up with mostly Jewish friends in Ann Arbor. So they coined me as a “Woo,” a wannabe Jew. I always wanted a bat mitzvah. And this [movie] kind of seems like that, but as a 30-something-year-old, not as a 13-year-old.
Q: How are the reactions different from the ones you get for “Emily in Paris”?
A: When I get recognized for “Emily in Paris,” people feel like they’ve really gotten to know a very specific part of me. But with this movie, when people talk to me, it feels like they’ve gotten to know a big part of me that also I’ve never really talked about. A lot of people have told me, “I was gut-punched. I had no idea that that emotional part of it was coming.”
A: For so long, my thing has always been about how can I stuff a full human into whatever opportunity I’m given. And this was the first time I didn’t feel the pressure of explaining an entire character within a couple of scenes.
Q: You’re saying you haven’t had that opportunity because you’ve never had a lead role before?
A: In an elementary sense, absolutely. The writers Teresa and Cherry, and Adele Lim, the director, had this goal of writing this Seth Rogen-esque amazing comedy for Lionsgate. But there’s also a scene when she’s about to go to the adoption agency where her mom gave her up and she’s musing over whether it would have been different if she grew up with people who looked like her. And how maybe she could be known for different qualities, like being the smart girl, and not just be the Asian girl all the time. That was something I collaborated on with the writers and Adele that came out of my own rhetoric and what I as a person experienced.
Q: What was the part of the movie you felt really brought out a new side of you?
It was really the dynamic on-set, like, “I’ve never been around this many Asian people.” I’d never been in a space like that, especially at that caliber, where all the people in the cast, but also the leadership, were Asian American. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told, “Oh, yeah, I forgot you’re Asian; you’re basically White,” and [I was] hearing that as a good thing for a while. Especially in the Broadway world, I’ve been the only person of color in an audition room. And I’ve actually been told, “We want to go ethnic,” and I was like, “What am I then?”
Q: They’d tell you that as a way of rejecting you for a part?
A: Yeah! I can remember being told, “We want to go with a person of color.” And I’m like, “What?!” But also, those were never things that I was like, “Oh my God” [or that felt shocking to me]. I got into the industry understanding that this was probably going to be what it was. And I think that’s what’s so cool about right now — even if slow-burning, at least we can have some conversations about it, which is something I never even knew I had access to before.
Q: For a lot of the movie, my Asian friends and I were confused about why you were playing a Chinese person when those of us who are your fans know you’re Korean, and it’s something that the Asian creators of the movie would have known, too. And then Audrey finds out she’s Korean and it all makes sense. But did that ever strike you as confusing?
A: I think by the time I talk to people, they’ve seen it, so the whole movie makes sense. My three co-stars are all Chinese, and they had a lot of insights. So, I felt like whether I’m playing someone who’s Chinese or Korean or Japanese, the character still grew up the way I did. I really connected with her feeling very White and knowing nothing about whatever culture.
Q: I think most people know you as Mindy on “Emily in Paris.” She has some truly insane outfit choices. Do you ever get a costume and are like, “What in the world?”
A: There was a lot of random latex stuff this past season, and I’m like, “Oh my gosh; only Mindy could walk up to a park for an outdoor movie date in this full latex outfit.”
Q: Mindy ends Season 3 in a possible love triangle between her fashion scion boyfriend Nico and her ex, Benoit, who’s taking her to Eurovision. What are your hopes for Season 4?
A: I would love for Season 4 to happen. I mean we have it happening [eventually], but we’ve had to push it off because of the WGA strike and possibly the SAG strike. [Note: This interview took place before the strike was declared.] And I think it’s really important. Mindy would not be anything on that show without the writers. They’re the ones who really got to know me and created Mindy’s arc and gave me the first original song I’ve ever done, “Mon Soleil.” It’s just not possible to do without them. So that’s my hope, that we’re able to shoot it. But I think we are going to Rome this season. That’s what I hear.
Q: How are you feeling about the SAG strike? What’s your contingency plan?
Publicist interjects: I think, you know, we’re all kind of in the dark, so let’s just skip. Thank you.
Q: Okay, so your only hope is that the season happens?
A: I just want to know what happened. I’m in the dark, too. I want to know what’s going on, too.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
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