Top 40 Lulu Wang Quotes

In some ways, every character we write, especially the protagonist, is some version of ourselves, as a writer/director, even if they aren’t the same gender.

But you just don’t know where any film is going to go, or how it’s going to end up. Films so often don’t get the love and attention needed to get to the right festival, or find the right distributor, or get seen by the world.

My goal is, no matter what genre or story, I’ll find a personal angle. It doesn’t have to be autobiographical, or specifically Asian-American. It has to explore a burning question that I have.

Sometimes America is so great because it brings all of us together, but sometimes it can be so limiting because it puts labels on things.

When people finance a movie, they have their own ideas and have things they want to change.

That’s what I love – on ‘The Farewell,’ we played with a lot of silence and a lot of negative space, and I really worked with the composer to create those juxtapositions of like, those awkward silences and when something comes in.

I immigrated when I was six so I had to learn English and I was always an outsider from a young age, and so I think my drive was that I wanted to fit in.

Because if Asian American content is seen as a trend, the way that like leggings are in, then that’s not true representation or inclusion. The mainstream doesn’t have to worry about that.

I made ‘The Farewell’ for me, for my family, and for other immigrant children, or children of immigrants, who feel caught in-between two worlds.

There have been moments where I laughed at my own family’s culture, though it’s hard to separate out whether something funny is cultural, or just my grandma specifically.

In America especially, if you’re Chinese and you work at a restaurant, there’s a certain connotation among the Chinese immigrant community: It’s the first generation that opens restaurants as a way to survive. You open to support your family so your kids can become doctors and lawyers.

Writing is a type of therapy for me. I’m always trying to break down what happened, and why I felt a certain way.

If you think about feudal China during times of the emperors, food was a very elevated art form and you had to be really skilled.

My father’s a diplomat. He speaks Russian.

I never want to tell a story where I’m lecturing to the audience.

If I’d been traveling, I come home, my mom makes noodles.

My brother is working to change the perception of Chinese food in America.

My grandmother was sick and I was told that we could not tell her, and that my cousin was gonna have this wedding as an excuse for us to all go and see her. And I think that I was just so frustrated by the situation.

There’s so little representation of people who look like me behind the camera that it makes you want to say yes to any opportunity out of desperation. It puts you in a situation where you can’t make your best work. Diversity for cheap.

Who does get to claim Americanness? You know, my brother was born in this country. And is he seen as American? So, I mean, it brings up a lot of interesting questions.

And that meant so much to me to have my parents’ support. I don’t think I could have continued to push through with the first feature and the many shorts that I did without their support.

The questions I want to ask will revolve around humans, connection, relationships, family, and stories – what are the stories we tell ourselves and each other?

Americans always talk about family love being unconditional, and I realized that I didn’t feel that way.

We all have different aspects of ourselves, and who we are to different people in our lives, at different stages of our lives.

I’m comfortable, culturally I’m American, my perspectives are American, but from an aesthetic perspective do other people look at me and think that I’m American?

Protagonists traditionally are active characters.

As long as I’m making something from my voice, from my perspective there will be Asian American content because I am the storyteller.

In China there is a holiday around the death of your ancestors where everyone goes to the cemetery. It’s a celebratory thing. It’s very colorful.

My mother always wanted to play an instrument. Her parents never gave her that. Then it got to a point where I’d been playing for 18 years, and to give it up would make me feel guilty. But my parents also knew that realistically, I wasn’t going to become a concert pianist.

I can’t speak for everybody, and I don’t want to say it for an entire culture, but for me, coming from an immigrant family, it’s very difficult to go find your voice, which requires a lot of failure.

There’s a reason why the cultures of so many Chinatowns around the world in some ways are more Chinese. They’ve held onto older Chinese rituals, traditions, and symbols in ways that, if you go back to China today, they’re not holding on to. They’re getting married in white dresses and in churches.

I actually am terrified of horror movies. I’m very sensitive. But for me, I get so scared of horror movies that if I know something is coming I’ll actually pause the movie and fast forward.

Whereas in America we are so fearful of mortality, we don’t want to talk about it, we don’t think about it, and in many ways we treat elderly people as invisible because they are a constant reminder of our own mortality. We put them away and put them in retirement homes so we don’t want to deal with that.

I grew up in a household that really encouraged reading and writing. My mother loves philosophy and is constantly reading philosophy and talking to me about different philosophers and different ways of life.

My grandma, Nai Nai, has had the clothes she wants to be buried prepared since she was like 60. I guess there is an openness to discussing. It’s part of life. It’s part of the every day.

I drew influence from Mike Leigh, Ruben Ostlund, a lot of Scandinavian filmmakers, Lukas Moodysson. I also drew influence from horror films and thrillers, which is something I would never think to do earlier in my career.

And that is something I’ve heard from many people who immigrate is that when they go back to their home countries, in a way, they think they’re going to be embraced and completely feel like they’ve come home. This disconcerting thing is when you go back there and you feel more foreign than you ever have.

I don’t think there’s ever an inappropriate time to laugh! I’m a curious person. So if someone laughs, I want to know why.

I didn’t see myself in Jia Jhangke or Wong Kar-Wai films. Those are Asian filmmakers, and I very much am an American filmmaker.

I didn’t grow up making coffee. I’m not good at it.