constancewudaily:In an effort to shake things up, she’s developing a series about the Chinese
constancewudaily:In an effort to shake things up, she’s developing a series about the Chinese Exclusion Act at the turn of the century. She readily admits that she didn’t even know about the act until a couple of months ago — for a major historical moment, it’s rarely discussed in history classes. “It’s the only act of its kind that specifically banned any Chinese people from entering the United States. And the government only recently issued a formal apology. The series really explores that in the era and how Chinese people had the fortitude to turn a law like that into a type of survival.”If this sounds like an unusual next step, it’s in keeping with the career path she wants, as defined by mentors like Ang Lee, who’s directed a range of work from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to The Hulk and Brokeback Mountain. She’s inspired by Lee’s refusal to be pinned down: “I go into so many meetings with executives, and they get defensive and give very lazy excuses as to why this white person is going to sell their movie even if they don’t have a proven box-office-success track record. They will even just give an excuse like, ‘Oh well, so-and-so just looks like a movie star, you just know they are.’”I ask her the question I always find myself wondering: “Is it getting any better?” “It’s barely getting better,” she tells me. “Maybe because they’re operating from a fear mentality. But I want other Asian Americans to have the opportunities, too. I don’t want myself to be the only one who is getting stuff. So right now I want to do things that stretch and challenge me as an actor, as opposed to just taking the thing that catapults my fame.” -- source link