A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts, and entertainment, produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from November 2014 – March 2020. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.
As we get closer to the Oscars, the conversation around the lack of diversity in Hollywood is only getting louder.
A trio of advocacy groups — known as the Multi-Ethnic Coalition — has announced that it will press the major movie studios to increase the number of minorities both on- and off-screen. The Coalition has for many years been working with the TV industry on these same issues.
About 700 miles from Hollywood, the Sundance Film Festival has been a more inclusive environment over the years. This year’s event included a variety of films with diverse casts and made by filmmakers of various ethnic backgrounds.
One example is the film “The Free World.” It was written and directed by the bi-racial director Jason Lew. The film stars Boyd Holbrook, Elisabeth Moss and Octavia Spencer. And it’s Lew’s directorial debut. He started off in the film business as an actor.
The Frame's John Horn spoke with Lew at the Sundance Film Festival about how being an actor benefited him in the director's chair, how his Chinese-American upbringing inspired his film, and the importance of the diversity conversation in Hollywood.
How did your acting career help you out on your directorial debut?
I speak actor from being one for so long, and that was the one thing that I held on to in going in as a first-time filmmaker. I knew that I could get in there and I knew what good acting feels like and the atmosphere that's required for it. The real joy is getting to help shape these performances.
You have also done some screenwriting. The first screenplay you wrote was "Restless," which was directed by Gus Van Sant in 2011. How did that change your interest in becoming a director and was that a good first-time experience to be on the other end of things?
It was great. It was definitely overwhelming because I came to L.A. to pursue an acting career and had all my ups and downs with that, and in my downtime I was adapting this play I wrote while I was in New York. I found that people aren't super anxious to read a script by an out-of-work actor, but eventually I got it to some of the right people and it was a total dream.
But it was overwhelming after it happened because people were [asking], What's next? And I'm [saying], Give me five minutes. Because I didn't come to L.A. with a trunk full of scripts. So it was a whole process of figuring out what it means to be a writer. "The Free World" was the second thing that I wrote. I just wrote it for myself.
"The Free World" is about a man who was wrongly convicted of a crime he didn't commit. What was the inspiration for the story? It's very dark, troubling material.
Well, I always start with character and I was haunted by this image of a man who works at a dog shelter who was wrongfully accused. I was terrified as a kid of being accused of something I didn't do. I don't think anybody loves that, but I couldn't watch stories where that was the plot, even if it was a kid's movie. So I just wanted to lean into that fear and obsession.
The main character in the film, Mo, played by Boyd Holbrook, undergoes a religious conversion in prison and becomes Muslim. Did you think about casting Mo with an actor of color, or was it important that he be played by a white man?
I was always open to that, but the first image that I had was this white Muslim. I was really fascinated because it happens in prison. I was reading about it and I was just so fascinated with just how strong that spiritual conversion must have to be to cross tribes in prison. I'm bi-racial, which I'm very proud of — I'm Chinese-American and Caucasian — so I've always identified with characters that don't quite feel like they fit and are struggling to define what world they belong to.
As a Chinese-American filmmaker, do you feel like this is an opportunity for you to tell stories that might not be told? And are those stories different from what you've being asked to do as an actor?
Yeah, well, it's a pretty simple answer for the parts I was being offered — [there were] just very few, and that was one of the motivating factors, that I'd love to change this from the other side. It's getting better. I think the diversity conversation is no longer a conversation. They're calling it a crisis, which I think is great, but I like to tell stories about characters that don't have their stories told. Unfortunately, right now that's a lot of stories about people of color.
I come at a story as somebody who had to struggle with my identity since I was a kid. When I was a kid I asked my dad: "So I'm half-Chinese and half-regular?" Of course, that's a heartbreaking thing to hear, but ever since I was conscious enough to know that you had an identity, I had to search for it. So I think that will always permeate stories, whether they're specifically about the Asian-American experience or not. I hope to be able to make more about specifically that.