‘The Wedding Banquet’ Director Andrew Ahn: Interview

Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet, based on Ang Lee’s 1993 film of the same name, follows a group of four thirty-somethings dabbling in various hijinks and going through tribulations as it pertains to their queer sexualities. 

Set in Seattle, one couple, Lee (Lily Gladstone) and Angela (Kelly Marie Tran), run into some monetary hardships while trying to conceive via IVF treatments. The other couple, and best friends of Lee and Angela, Chris (Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-chan), face a relationship crossroads when Min, facing the soon-to-be expiration of his South Korean visa, is pressured by his business-oriented grandmother (Youn Yuh-jung) to return and run the company. Min’s desire to stay and be with Chris is further jeopardized by the fact that he still hasn’t managed to come out to his grandmother out of fear she will cut him off if he does. So Min, utilizing the potential of his wealthy family, suggests Angela marry him so he can acquire a green card, and in return, she can have access to money for IVF treatments. 

Here, Deadline speaks to Ahn about making LGTBQ+ films in modern times, fun casting decisions and the versatility of storytelling.

DEADLINE: As a video game fan, first, I must ask: Who put that Kingdom Hearts reference in the script? 

ANDREW AHN: Bowen is a big gamer. I know that he plays Kingdom Hearts, and I wanted to incorporate that into his character because it felt appropriate. He’s this former PhD student who is now a birder and trying to find every distraction to not work on himself, so video games worked. I have not played Kingdom Hearts, but my boyfriend has, so I asked him to think of the nerdiest joke he could think of. He mentioned a Verizon subscriber Kingdom Hearts (Kingdom Hearts V Cast) crossover, and I thought that was perfect. We’re putting it in. 

DEADLINE: Talk to me about what led you to create this reimaging. 

AHN: Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet was the first gay film that I ever saw, and the fact that it was a gay and Asian film, I think, really set me on the right path as a person and as a filmmaker. I love that my first experience with queer representation dealt with intersectionality, and so I have always loved the movie. Our producers, Anita Gou, Caroline Clark, Joe Pirro, and James Schamus, approached me to discuss what a reimagining might look like. And I remember re-watching the film in preparation for that meeting and just being so inspired.

I had seen it multiple times over the years. Still, I think there was something about watching it at that moment and being in this phase of my life right now where my boyfriend and I are actively having conversations about getting married and having kids. It just triggered all these emotions, feelings, and insights in the way that great art does. It really resonates with you and makes you think about how the themes of the film and the characters inspire you to think about your own life. And so, I took that inspiration and ran with it. And it’s a situation where if I didn’t have that personal way into the story, I wouldn’t feel good about reimagining the film. But because I love the original so much and because it speaks to me so much, I felt like I had a personal way in to make this reimagining.

DEADLINE: Which character do you relate to more? 

AHN: I would say I’m the Lee and Min. My boyfriend is the Angela and Chris. I’m the one who wants a baby and to get married. And in many ways, my boyfriend’s [situation] is a more nuanced process. There’s so much about these characters’ journeys that remind me of my life, and I think about my relationship with my parents. I think about being a good partner. And in the most macro sense, I think this film deals with truly being there for someone and seeing them. As a son and a partner, that’s a really hard thing to do, and you have to work at it. I think it’s funny that we start the film with the character May, played by Joan Chen, who won an award because she figured out how to be “the best mom.” But I think the truth is that being a parent, ally, and partner is a constant state of learning, affirming and choosing. You just can’t settle. You can’t stay fixed because we grow and evolve. And so that’s something that I think every character is figuring out and understanding, and it is something that I’ve been practicing in my life as an adult.

DEADLINE: What were some non-negotiables that you had to keep in your version of the film? 

AHN: I wanted this film to have a sense of optimism and joy. There’s something about how hard it is to be a queer person today, and I didn’t want to kick an audience while we’re down. I don’t think that’s responsible. And I think that there are other films that talk about the difficulty and tragedy of being queer, and I wanted to really acknowledge those things and explore those things in this movie. But I ultimately wanted to give the audience a sense of hope. So, that was non-negotiable. I wanted to have a Korean wedding in the movie. I saw my brother get married and have a traditional Korean wedding, and I loved how beautiful and meaningful the ceremony is, but also how seemingly silly and arbitrary. It’s so funny, these traditions, sometimes we don’t know where they even come from and what they represent.

DEADLINE: Right. There’s that scene with the jujubes and chestnuts in the ceremony and people not knowing which one represents sons and daughters. 

AHN: Exactly. That moment for me was this feeling that traditions can sometimes feel like they’re written in stone, but actually, maybe we can expand them so that they can become more inclusive so that maybe you don’t have to think about the jujubes and chestnuts being [representative of] sons and daughters. You can just think about, wow, look at these children, and they can identify how they want to. So, I really wanted to bring in that element of myself being Korean into the film. But I think there were a lot of inspirations from the original film that I just wanted to hold true to the humanity of these characters, which was so important to me. I wanted these characters to feel like human beings that exist outside of the bounds of the movie.

DEADLINE: What was something that you thought wouldn’t initially work while filming but then ended up working out just fine? 

AHN: The script was initially written to take place in Los Angeles because that’s where I came of age as a gay man. Because of the difficulty of shooting in LA and the financing, it became more reasonable to shoot in Canada. So, we were going to cheat Vancouver for Los Angeles, but then when we were location scouting, Vancouver is so green with this Pacific Northwest lush vegetation. I wanted to keep it an American story because of the intricacies of the green card stuff, so we set it in Seattle. Initially, I was like, oh, is this the right thing? And then it all just came into place. Lily Gladstone grew up in Seattle, and she wanted to make her character Duwamish, which brought up this beautiful theme of home, stewardship and cultural identity. Bowen’s character, Chris, being a birder, made more sense somehow in Seattle. And even Angela, being a scientist studying worms, it just kind of worked in a really great way. And I can’t imagine the film taking place anywhere else.

DEADLINE: Talk about getting Youn Yuh-jung and Joan Chen to play grandmother and mother, respectively. 

AHN: Joan Chen, a legend of Chinese cinema and an iconic mother of a queer daughter in the film Saving Face. And I love that movie. I was actually kind of nervous that Joan might say no because she’d already played the mother of a queer daughter. But she saw how different this mother is, and I think had so much fun playing this rambunctious kind of over-enthusiastic mother of a queer daughter. And she is incredible. I think Joan plays that dynamic range of fun and sassy to so intimate, incredibly well.

And then Youn Yuh-jung, I remember having an initial conversation with her after sending her the script, and the role was initially written as Min’s mother, not Min’s grandmother. And she was very humble, and she said, “I feel a little old playing this character’s mother. What if I was a grandmother?” And she started talking about how that might change their dynamic. And as a director, I could see this actor’s inspiration in her eyes, this sparkle. And that’s such an exciting moment for a director because you’re like, the actor’s really thinking and feeling, and the rest is history.

It’s very meaningful to me that both actresses really drew upon their experiences as parents to craft these roles. In my first conversation with Joan, we just talked about family life and my mother, about her daughters. Joan has a daughter named Angela. And then Youn Yuh-jung, she talked to me about her gay son and throwing him and his husband their wedding, and that just meant so much to me. And she said that she wanted to make this movie for him. And that was so motivating. I just could not have asked for better matriarchs on this film.

DEADLINE: You’ve got Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran as a couple. What made them perfect for you and perfect for each other on screen? 

AHN: When I was thinking about the character of Lee, I wanted to find someone who was so emotionally intelligent while the rest of the characters kind of run around like chickens with their heads cut off, Lee was really grounding. And I also wanted to find an actor who had a maternal caretaking quality. And I had seen Lily in her films, of course. I love Certain Women. I think she’s incredible in that film. She’s so amazing. And Killers of the Flower Moon. I had also seen her in interviews and saw how funny she was and goofy. And meeting her in person, I just was like, oh, you’re such a nerd. You’re such a goofball. I love it. And I just knew that she would kill this part. She would be the perfect Lee.

And with Kelly, this is a really hard role. Angela is really ping-ponging emotions, and she has to balance the comedy and the drama. I was looking for a really special and unique actor, and I just thought that Kelly has this incredible range that she hasn’t gotten to show off in some of the roles that she’s done. And I just wanted to give her that opportunity. I also saw this struggle between internal and external, which Kelly portrays so beautifully. And then to see them together was so fun. They met for the first time on our first day of shooting. It’s so interesting, even just kind of their physicality. The first scene that we shot with them was at the bar after Angela confronts her mom. They’re holding each other. And when we were doing that rehearsal, just finding that physicality, Kelly was like, “Oh, I found my nook.” And I’m like, “Oh, wow. Yes.” I have a nook with my boyfriend. And that’s just an intimate relationship thing. And so the chemistry was so immediate and organic that I love how much they feel like a couple.

DEADLINE: Personally, I need you and Joel Kim Booster to hop on Final Draft and get to making Fire Island 2, but until then, what’s next for you? 

AHN: It’s cool because Joel, Matt Rogers, Torian Miller, Zane Phillips, and, of course, Bowen were all at the LA premiere yesterday which was our Fire Island family supporting. I would love to make Fire Island 2, but that’s on Joel. I’d love to have a career like Ang Lee, where I get to play around in different genres. He did The Wedding Banquet, he did The Hulk, he did Brokeback Mountain, and he did Life of Pi. Like, come on, such a fun, spiky career. And so that’s something that I am looking for because I think it keeps our careers interesting. We’re forever students as artists, and I love that. I just want to keep learning.