This past week, I got to interview actress Lynn Chen (Lakeview Terrace, Saving Face, TV’s All My Children) about her upcoming WHITE ON RICE, (Check out the trailer) a funny indie romantic comedy that will open limited starting next weekend, September 11th, 2009 in L.A. and Orange County. In the movie she plays the character Ramona that the lead character Jimmy has a crush on. Written and directed by Dave Boyle (Big Dreams Little Tokyo) whom I also had the chance to talk with. It’s starring some of the most talented, fantastic Asian cast I’ve seen on screen, I highly recommend it and here is the interview after this jump…
RS: How did you get this gig and what attracted you to the character Ramona that you play in the movie
LC: James Kyson Lee actually introduced me to Dave Boyle and he passed along the script of WHITE ON RICE and told me to read it and if I got anything out of it that I should let him know and I read it. The first thing that popped out to me was just all the female.. he didn’t told me to read for Ramona, he just told me to look at the script and I saw all these Asian female characters that were all so distinct and I loved that. And also I really liked there was in the script, originally a scene where Ramona got to sing which was actually cut from the movie but I wanted to be able to experience that as well. So I ended up meeting Dave and auditioning for him a few times before he gave me the role
RS: I’ve seen WHITE ON RICE, it’s a funny little movie and in the story, I think it’s somewhat fair to say and correct me if I’m wrong, that Ramona is like the villain, because the she doesn’t get with Jimmy which I’m sure the audience is going to be cheering for.
LC: I mean I think you know, the audience definitely roots for Jimmy but I think they understand Ramona because if they had a Jimmy coming after them, they probably would react the same way, (laugh) so I think they understand where she’s coming from. I think she initially, she’s polite, ya know, she’s clear with him ‘you don’t have a chance with me’ but at the same time she’s not mean to him. She goes along and does things with him. She’d go out to the Dinosaur park with him but there’s so much she can take from Jimmy. And I think the audience understands that.
RS: I understand that you’re a very excellent piano player, so did you teach the child star in this movie to play the piano because he’s hella good like a maestro.
LC: (laugh) He’s actually very very good, himself. Justin I believe that’s his name. He did his own piano playing. I didn’t have much interaction with him actually. I only saw him at the end of the day for like a few minutes because we didn’t have that many scenes together
RS: But what exactly you found fascinating about this project though? Why say ‘yes I’m going to do WHITE ON RICE?
LC: For me a lot of this had to do with working with Dave. Even though I hadn’t seen Big Dreams Little Tokyo. I saw clips from it and I just understood that he had.. and meeting him.. I understood he had a vision, a unique point of view and I wanted to work with him.
RS: Since most of the stars of this movie are Asians, what do you hope the response from Asian American audiences would be to WHITE ON RICE?
LC: I hope they’ll come out and support it. But I don’t think it’s.. even though half the movie is in Japanese, I don’t think specifically it’s an Asian film, I think you could insert any ethnicity in and anyone would be able to relate to it because the characters are so strong, ya know, you have the family element, the romance element, you have the comedic stuff. I think it’s not just something that only Japanese people would get. I think everyone could relate to it.
RS: Was everyone great to work with? Can you tell us about your experience working on the set?
LC: Everyone was such a great cast and terrific crew that they had ensembled and we shot in Salt Lake City and a lot of the cast were from Los Angeles so we were flying out together and we just got to know each other, we were getting to know Salt Lake City together, exploring together, having dinner together, having days-off together, so I really bonded with a lot of them, the members of the crew were just great. It was very hot in Salt Lake City, cause we were shooting in the summer it got up to.. it would be like 103 by 11 AM and go up to 110 and 115 so when we were shooting outdoors like at the Dinosaur park, I got heatstroke a few times which was not fun so it was a very specifically grueling shoot for me especially I had insomnia while I was there. But other than that physical part, it was a great experience, I wouldn’t change a thing. I had a blast working on this.
RS: So what’s next for you?
LC: I have a few projects that are lined up that we’re just trying to get it going and we’ll see if this actually happens. There’s a lot of things that fall through the cracks throughout the year so I have some projects coming up that I’m attached to. But I have 2 other indie films that are just starting, they’re both comedies, that are starting their film festival circuit. One of them is THE PEOPLE I’VE SLEPT WITH starring Karin Anna Cheung, from Better Luck Tomorrow. I play her sister in that and another movie called WHY AM I DOING THIS? About an Asian American actor and an African American comic living in Hollywood, an ensemble comedy, so those 2 movies are just starting to hit the festival circuit so I’m interested to see what end up becoming of those 2 films and if they’ll get a theatrical release at the end of their festival runs or not. I’ve been auditioning and seeing what opportunities come my way. I can’t always be choosy as an actor
RS: Ya know how it is with Hollywood. If you’re Asian and you can’t literally kick-ass like Cung Lee, you probably won’t get cast in a movie. What do you think the prospect is for aspiring Asian actors today?
LC: I think it’s getting better. For the quality of stuff that I go in for. Ya know, people are open to it. Different types of roles. No one’s really broken out of the money-making venture that is Asian American martial art, that has proven to be successful box office stuff. I think one we start to prove ourselves with Asian American romantic lead, the dramatic or whatever. We can see more of it and I think it’s getting better, definitely improving. It’s just that we’re still at the beginning of that. What we need is for the community to rally together and come out for movies like WHITE ON RICE and support that so it sends a very clear message ‘Hey you should make more movies, romantic comedies, with Asian people in it because people like that’
