30 SUMMER 2019 MOVIEMAKER.COM
BY AWK WAFINA,
AS TOLD TO CALEB HAMMONDORKING ON The Farewell
came out of nowhere for me.
My manager sent me the
script and said, “I’m not even
gonna tell you what it’s about.
You’ve just gotta read it.” I saw the title page,
which at that time was called Nai Nai—the
word for “grandma” in Chinese. I thought,
“If this is what I think it’s gonna be about,
that’s crazy!” I knew it was based on writer-
director Lulu Wang’s true life story, and I
listened to the episode of This American Life
on which she based her script, and cried for
hours. I was blown away not just by how
real it was, but how specific it was.
There’s a high level of pressure that comes
with having to play a real person. Whenever
you approach telling a story that involves
real people, you need to make that story real
for you, too. Lulu made clear that the char-
acter of Billi is her own character, but she
also allowed me to say, “This is what
I think Billi would do. This is how I think
she would feel.” Lulu was very receptive
to my input and wasn’t necessarily precious
about the evolution of Billi; she let the char-
acter be born on-screen instead.
How an ensemble cast develops a certain
chemistry is hard to describe. When my cast
members and I went back to China, not only
were we among actors playing our family
members, but we spent a lot of time together,
shared meals together, and looked out for each
other, to the point that we really did become
a family unit. We all had a shared understand-
ing of the film’s subject matter, and in some
scenes, such as one in which Diana Lin, who
plays my mother, is crying, her emotional re-
sponse came from the fact that she knew what
was going on behind the scenes. Our off-screen
relationship was very powerful in that way.
We developed an appreciation of the bonds
we forged and a sense of love for one another.
A lot of people assume that starring
in The Farewell was my conscious decision
to say, “Oh, now I’m doing drama,” but it re-
ally wasn’t. I don’t go out looking for specific
roles. When I read scripts, I’m looking toand other potential partners, we had the
entire script translated by a professional
translator. That means we always had an
English version of the script as well as a
Chinese version. As I continued to make
changes to my English draft, our office used
special software to track the changes for the
translators so we could stay up to date.
The problem for me, in not reading Chi-
nese, is that I had no idea what was written
in the Chinese script. Translations can often
be very stilted and lack the colloquialism
that makes dialogue sound authentic, so I
turned to my parents for help. I didn’t neces-
sarily want them to be so involved in the
process early on, but I also knew that they’d
be invaluable in making sure the dialogue
was representative of how my family spoke.
As the script continued to change all the
way through production, the translations
were also an ongoing process. Even after
we got onto set, I’d occasionally hear a line
of Chinese dialogue that didn’t sound quite
right and with the help of the Chinese ac-
tors, we were able to make the dialogue in
all languages sound natural and authentic.CASTING FAMILY STYLE
One of the questions I get the most is,
“How do you cast actors to play yourself or
your own family members?” With an ensem-
ble, it’s as much about the balance and chem-
istry of the group as it is about the strength
of the actors as individuals. Putting together
a cast of this size is very much like a puzzle—
seeing how one face works against another to
create either symmetry or contrast.
The first actor we cast was Nora because
she’s the lynchpin, the outsider, but the yin to
the family’s yang. She needed to feel quintes-
sentially American, while still having a believ-
able connection to China and her grandmoth-
er. She needed to be able to express all of this
with her face, since Billi isn’t able to speak
her mind for much of the movie.
When I saw Nora’s audition tape, I was
astonished by how much she embodied all
of these things so effortlessly. Her audition
showed me that I wasn’t casting “Awkwafina,”
but Nora Lum—a woman who was raised by
her own Chinese grandmother and who had
also studied abroad in Beijing like I did.
When I first started talking to Nora about
the role of Billi, I made it clear to her that I
wasn’t looking for someone to play me. Billi is
not me. She is a character who goes on a jour-
ney similar to mine and has the experiences
and emotions I had, but she doesn’t need
to behave like me or talk like me. Instead of
trying to channel myself into my protagonist,
I asked my lead to simply bring her ownTo land career-changing projects, approach
each opportunity with good intentions, says
The Farewell star AwkwafinaEARNING BY HEART
be moved by the story, and as long as that
happens, I’m open to any role. Auditioning
should always be about quality over quantity.
If you don’t connect to a character or a story,
you’re not going to be able to tell it right.
Between when I first started auditioning in
2014 and now, the film industry has changed
quickly when it comes to the issue of diverse
representation. Five years ago, I would often
get roles that weren’t written by Asians, telling
the story of an Asian-American experience
based on stereotypes that just felt weird. But
now I find myself coming across these charac-
ters less and less. It’s not that I don’t want to
play any roles that aren’t explicitly Asian-
American, but at the same time it’s important
to get roles that don’t have a description as to
what the character “should be.” Our continued
push for representation can go both ways—
either in the form of telling Asian-American
stories, or putting Asian-Americans in stories
regardless of their regional specificity.
A lot has changed for me in the past
couple of years, so now if I’m going be given
a platform, I’m going to use that platform
for good. I’m not saying I’ll never direct,
but since I haven’t worked in that space,
I don’t want to take that opportunity away
from someone right for the job. I’d much
rather put someone in that position and give
someone that chance. Moviemaking is about
doing things with the right intentions. I do
believe there is a kind of karmic system to
film production that’s centered around a cast
and crew working with a good heart, believ-
ing in the project. As long as you operate
within that system, it’ll be a fun ride. MMW
KEEPING IT REAL: CHANNELING A WRITER-
DIRECTOR’S LIFE EXPERIENCES ON SCREEN NEEDS
TO FEEL EMOTIONALLY HONEST FOR AN ACTOR, TOO,
SAYS AWKWAFINA