Interview with Saving Face's Michelle Krusiec and Lynn Chen
In first-time director Alice Wu's new Asian American lesbian romantic comedy Saving Face, which opened in limited release this weekend, Michelle Krusiec and Lynn Chen play Wil and Vivian, a doctor and a dancer who fall in love against the backdrop of their insular Chinese American community in New York. I talked to Lynn and Michelle recently about the movie, their first kiss, and how they feel about playing the first Asian American lesbian couple in an American theatrical release.
AfterEllen.com: Michelle, how did you get cast as Wil?
Michelle Krusiec: That process took a while. It was May, 2003 when I first met [producer] Teddy Zee, who had seen the show I made in Taiwan. It wasn’t until August that I was actually cast. Between May, June, and July I was preparing for the role as if I had been cast, hoping that all the work would eventually pay off, but I didn’t get a firm confirmation until late in the process.
AE: What preparation were you doing, learning Mandarin?
MK: That was a big thing because when I first initially met with Alice, I had probably one of the best auditions I have ever had, because I totally connected with her. But I wasn't fluent in Mandarin. I was at an elementary level at the time and my pronunciation was pretty bad. It was very possible that people could hear it and it might draw you out of the performance, and that’s what she was concerned with. So I tried to get myself as proficient as possible. Essentially I think I went from elementary grade to high school grad in three months.
AE: (to Lynn) How did you get the part of Vivian?
Lynn Chen: My manager at the time only represented Asian actresses, so he was being called for every single part. He sent in all the stuff, I went in and auditioned, and immediately they said "You should read the script." So I did and was called back two weeks later, called back, again and again. It was similar to Michelle, I knew I was their first choice and they were telling me things like, “You might want to look like a ballet dancer, you don’t have the part, but you might want to do these things.” I was like "okay" and did those things, but it was a long casting process for me. I started in May or June and was not officially cast until a few weeks before production started like in September.
AE: What did you two think when you first met each other?
MK: Truthfully, I thought Lynn was really sweet, and I wanted someone to be more like, grrr! To dominate me. I think that is a more stereotypical response: one woman is dominant and the other one is passive. That was sort of what I fell into, I wanted a women who is strong and hard, who was going to take me, because I was a passive and introverted character. Lynn’s performance took it in a different great direction. Alice went with a totally different choice. Alice’s casting choices sort of show how unique she is.
LC: When I first read the script and when I was auditioning and stuff, I had a different picture of Vivian in my mind. I pictured someone who was strong, who was comfortable in her own skin, but less classy then she ended up being. I pictured someone who was sort of raw and just said what ever the hell she wanted to say and didn’t apologize for it. When I was auditioning and saw the wardrobe, I was like, "Oh, okay, she is a little classier than me" with my stained tank top, and my bra hanging out.
AE: What was your initial impression of Michelle?
LC: When I was in the final stage, I knew what was going on and found out they had cast Michelle as the lead already, and I was like, “Okay, great. I have to find out everything about this girl because I have to know exactly who I am going to be working with.” I had HBO on Demand, I watched all the movies she had been in and fast forwarded to Michelle’s part and paused and watched. I rented Pumpkin and all these movies. I was like, “Wait a minute, she has done so many different types of roles. I can't put my finger on who I think she is!"
MK: (laughs)
LC: When I first walked in the room to audition with Michelle, I had known she was a good actress, but I had already tested with someone else before that--like a month before, someone else they were considering for your role.
MK: (surprised) You did?
LC: Yeah.
MK: (laughing) I don’t want to hear this.
LC: I tested with her, and I was like "this isn’t working." I was worried about the project because I didn’t think she was right for the role at all. I thought if they were really considering this girl strongly for it, then I was in trouble, because A, I don’t think she is right for it, and B, I am not feeling it.
AE: The chemistry wasn't there.
LC: Right. When I went for my final audition with Michelle and I did it with her, I was like, “I can totally see this happening and we're on the same page.”
AE: What did you think when you found that Joan Chen was going to be involved, and Will Smith was one of the film's producers? Because doesn’t that raise the movie to a whole other level?
LC: Yeah. It was at that point when I was really wanting the part, I was ready to die if they didn’t give me the part. But initially, I didn't know. My manager at the time didn’t really know what was going on. He was like, “There’s Will Smith.” I was like, “the Will Smith?” He was like, “I don’t know, maybe just a Will Smith.” I was like, “Okay whatever.”
MK: That’s funny. Willard Smith.
LC: I was having dinner with my cousin who is in the business, and he is over at the Smith’s company. I asked him, "the Will Smith?" He was like, "Yeah." He told me "Joan Chen is going to play the mother" and I was like, "the Joan Chen?" At that point I was going to seriously die or go into a coma if I didn't get this part. I had been picturing it to be this very, very indie film that I didn’t think was going anywhere, but I liked the part and I wanted to be a part of it anyway. Then to find out Will Smith and Joan Chen were involved, I thought, “Wow, this is a chance to work with someone I have admired since I was very young, and Will Smith’s production company. This could go someplace!” It was a tough time waiting for the call.
MK: I had heard early on, on a hush-hush level that Joan Chen was being considered for the mother role, but it was never confirmed and I wasn’t really supposed to know. I actually thought she was wrong for the part, as well. Only because I envisioned this stocky mom, sunk to the earth, with a kind of harshness. Maybe not harshness, but a strength about her that to me...when I think of Joan and her work, I think of ethereal beauty and I think of strength, but I think of something that is still very feminine and very sensual. I saw his mother as not that. I also thought Joan was so young still, she couldn't be old enough to look like my mother. But again it is sort of Alice’s ability--she sort of subverted what I initially interpreted and created a whole different take on that.
AE: I have to say, watching the film, I thought "Wil is not old enough to be a doctor."
MK: Alice and I actually talked about that. The character was always conceived as someone who was very intelligent and skipped a couple of grades. She was a very young, sophisticated doctor. In the beginning you see the two doctors saying, “Is she a surgeon?” and he says, “Well, by 40.”
AE: Was the close-knit Chinese community portrayed in the film is something you could relate to, that made you think, “Oh yeah, I know communities like that”?
LC: I think if I had grown up in an urban setting, it definitely would have been more like that. But I grew up in a New Jersey suburb of New York that was mostly white. But my parents only hung out with other Asian families from towns that were surrounding. I think if we had been in a place where it was just Asian people, we would have definitely been like that.
MK: I grew up in a pretty different environment, it was upper-middle class in the suburbs of Virginia. I was one of a few Asians in my school, excluding a large community of Filipinos, and they tended to stick to their own community. In terms of an Asian community, I didn’t really feel like I had that kind of resource to tap into growing up. The world which Alice created in this movie was very different from my own upbringing.
AE: Did you have any qualms about playing lesbian roles?
MK: No. I didn’t have any qualms.
LC: If anything I feel like, because I was a women studies major, I felt like I had a background that would enable me to really understand this role, that if there were mostly straight girls going in, which I am assuming most of the girls that did go out for this part were straight, that I felt like I had an advantage, because I understood gay culture a lot more and took a lot of classes. I had a lot of gay friends, I know the music, I experimented myself. I felt like, if there is going to be any straight Asian actress to do it, it’s me.
MK: I think with my own sexuality, I don’t see it as impossible that I would ever be in a relationship with a woman. It’s not something I thought, “Oh my god that could never happen.” In my own imagination, it's…
AE: More of a continuum type of thing?
MK: Yeah. It doesn’t feel like a boundary to me. That is something I feel pretty comfortable expressing simply because to me that never seemed like a factor. I never really thought of it as, “Oh my gosh I am going to play a lesbian role.” I just thought of it as playing someone who falls in love with another person, and the gender is two women, but it never was an obstacle. In fact, I loved it. I thought it was a unique story line. For me as an artist, I found it to be provocative to be playing that kind a role.
AE: Did either of you watch the movie with your parents, and was that weird?
LC: I haven’t seen it much with my parents at all yet. They were going to come to Sundance but it got too complicated. They'll see it later on. I think the only thing that's going to be weird is the love scene, just because my mother never wanted me to do that. I've been acting since I was really young, and she was always like"don’t ever pose nude!" That was ingrained in my head.
MK: My mother said, “If you are going to pose nude, get a lot of money!” (laughs)
LC: I was so scared to tell my mom that I had done a nude scene, and when I finally told her she was like, “Oh my God, Oh my God. Okay.” Then, like a week later, I was talking to someone else and I had mentioned I did a nude scene, and my mom acted like she didn’t know and went, “Oh my god, oh my god.” I said, “Mom, you knew this.” She like, “I know, I know.” I feel like when we actually see, she will freak out initially.
AE: Did it make a difference that it was with a women or was it just the nudity?
LC: It’s just the nudity. My parents don’t care about the lesbian part. Actually, when they describe the movie to people, my Mom is so proud, she says, “This is my daughter, she is going to be in a movie. She’s a lesbian.”
MK: The nudity part I was actually okay with, I trusted Alice. It’s funny [turns to Lynn], the most vulnerable moment I find in the movie was when you touched my lip. Every time you do that, I feel so raw and very opened, because it’s not so much the nudity and it’s not being with a women. I felt that that moment really captured intimacy. Whenever I see that, I always kind of giggle and I am like "Oh, there it is, right there." Even more so then just Lynn and I being naked kissing.
AE: Had you two worked with each other long before you had to do that scene?
MK: Like a week or two.
LC: It was at the end of the first week.
MK: Really?
LC: Yes, it was the first week of shooting. We had been doing like non-stop crazy days. Remember, because that first kiss was the first time we actually kissed?
MK: Hmm. I can’t remember. She has nice lips though.
LC: (laughs) We didn’t kiss in rehearsal at all. The first time we actually kissed, it was very genuine. Alice shot that part in sequence--like our first kiss came first, before jumping into bed together and having to do any other sort of intimate stuff.
AE: What do you think about the fact that there haven’t been any Asian American lesbian couples in a U.S. theatrical release, that Wil and Vivian are the first?
LC: In general, I feel like there is very few Asian American couples period on screen. They are usually older men and women from the old country or something like that, but rarely do you see two young Asian people, even heterosexual couples, in a relationship. At least not as main characters. The fact that we are the first lesbian ones... When you said that [on the panel at Sundance] I was like, “Cool.”
MK: I didn’t know we were the first.
LC: I didn’t know that either.
MK: Today was my first day and all of a sudden it hit me that maybe this movie would be ground-breaking in a more sociopolitical way then I ever imagined. I have the tendency to be intellectual when it comes to work, so when I get into my process I try and take the knowledge out of it. Now that it is done and it exists in its form now, I realize that it actually does represent, not a movement, but it does represent something that has not ever been done before, and that to me is quite exciting. I never really acknowledged that. Like you were saying before about finally finding your representation on the screen…It’s like people for some reason don’t think something exists unless they see it. Sometimes people don’t feel validated until they see a representation of themselves. Thinking about that and all of the gay Asian women who exist who will see this film is really exciting.
AE: Do you think you are going to suddenly get offers for more lesbian parts after this movie?
LC: Do you know what, my first five auditions right after wrapping, when no one knew about the movie, were all lesbian parts! It had nothing to do with the movie, it just happened that way and I was like, “Wow that is really weird.”
MK: (to Lynn) Actually there is one project you auditioned for that I auditioned for as well, which was playing a lesbian role. I love it!
LC: And I want to be on the The L Word! (both laughing) Bring Will and Vivian on!
AE: (laughing) I'll put in a word for you.
LC: (laughing) Okay, thank you very much.
It looks really good and features Joan Chen as the mom. I love Joan Chen and it makes me happy just to see her though it's odd seeing her play the mom nowadays. It will play in LA starting May 27th I think. Look for it!
You must rent this one if you haven't seen it already. One of the best films I've seen this year....oh wait, is it next year already? So I guess that makes it THE best film I've seen so far this year. I'm gonna go buy it now.
