Sean Wang cast a familiar muse in his directorial feature debut: his grandmother.
I’d be like, We’re making our movie.
Are you going to act in this one too?
L to R: Izaac Wang as Chris Wang, Chang Li Hua as Nai Nai, Joan Chen as Chungsing Wang, and Shirley Chen as Vivian Wang in ‘Didi’.Courtesy of Focus Features/Talking Fish Pictures
And she was like, No.
I did the short film with you, but I’m not an actress.
Eventually, it got to the point where it wasn’t a joke anymore.
Joan Chen as Chungsing Wang and Izaac Wang as Chris Wang in ‘Didi’.Courtesy of Focus Features/Talking Fish Pictures
And she was like, If you’re that confident in me, I’ll do it.
And I was like, I’m confident.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The movie is semi-autobiographical.
Sean Wang attends the 2024 Oscars with his grandmothers and stars of ‘Nai Nai & Wài Pó’.Michael Buckner/Getty
How much of it was pulled from your own upbringing?
SEAN WANG:I say a lot and a little.
But everything within that container is fictionalized, dramatized, modified, and in service of the story.
Izaac Wang as Chris Wang in ‘Didi’.Courtesy of Focus Features/Talking Fish Pictures
I felt permission to splatter the things that I loved into the DNA of the movie.
Whats it like directing your grandma?
Is it more or less similar to directing any other actor?
I think it honestly makes it easy.
Because there’s a learning curve a lot of times with new collaborators, right?
You’re like, what’s your process?
You’re figuring out the workflow.
Were you wary of giving her notes?
I was not shy in giving her notes.
The hard part was giving her the right note because so much of directing is semantics.
Do it bigger is not a great note.
You have to get to the heart of it.
But again, my Chinese isn’t amazing.
I’m like, Grandma, just do it bigger!
I couldn’t find the right words.
That’s where I think my gap in language falls the most.
Joan was really helpful, too.
She was always right there next to her.
So she would be my on-set translator sometimes.
She and your other grandma looked stylish in custom Rodarte at the 2024 Oscars.
What memories can you share from being there with them?
Did they connect with any famous attendees?
It was really, really special.
They felt so seen and so loved.Jamie Lee Curtiscame and said hi to them.
It felt veryEverything Everywhere All At Onceteam bonding.
The Daniels came and met my grandmas.
They met Janet Yang, the president of the Academy.
They felt much more comfortable than I think I did, for sure.
Michael Buckner/Getty
You’ve spoken about Spike Jonze being an early filmmaking influence.
He voices a dead squirrel in this!
How did that come about?
I was like, wait, what is all this?
And there’s obviously a shout-out to him by name.
I got to meet him while we were in [post-production].
He had seen a short that I made and was asking me questions about it.
I was like, this is so trippy and surreal.
It was a really lovely conversation, and it felt familiar.
He was so unassuming and humble and it gave me a deeper appreciation for him.
And if you need anything, let me know.
I was like, wow, okay… do you want to voice a dead squirrel?
Because he does all these cameos.
He’s inMoneyball, The Wolf of Wall Street,all these voice cameos, too.
What was it like to mine from that?
I do think you’re right.
It is a shared experience when you’re that age.
You think you’re the only one going through stuff like that and feeling those things.
Because people would say to me, Sean, you’re the whitest Asian I know.
I was interested in skating, in pop punk music, and all of that informed how I dressed.
Because of those specific interests, people were like, You’re super white.
And I’m like, what does that even mean?
I think it gets to you in a subconscious way.
Even the fact that [Chris] says in the movie, Mom, you’re so Asian.
Its a weaponized saying.
How did that make me see myself?
We now have the vocabulary and distance to be like, That really messed me up.
We can start to analyze things in a way that actually makes us look at ourselves.
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What do you hope folks take away from the movie?
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.Didiis in select theaters now.
