Dear Gossips,
As mentioned, last night I moderated the Q&A after the 25th anniversary TIFF screening of The Joy Luck Club at the Elgin Theatre, the same theatre where it premiered at TIFF in 1993. Director Wayne Wang was joined by casting director Heidi Levitt, and cast members Kieu Chinh (Suyuan), Tsai Chin (Auntie Lindo), and Tamlyn Tomita (Waverly). So many feelings!
I met people last night who told me that they first watched the film with their mothers and that they had come with their own daughters now to see it again. So many women in the audience shared that they’d brought their children because they wanted them to understand what the JLC experience was like for them all those years ago, just as Suyuan said to June: “I see you.”
Thanks to all of you who came. And if you were there, you would have seen that Auntie Lindo in real life? Is even more Auntie Lindo, right? Tsai and Tamlyn told me that the cast has always been close, that they’ve stayed close through the years, that what they shared while working on JLC has bonded them forever. I hope it’s the same for the cast of Crazy Rich Asians. And I was thinking about CRA last night, about 25 years from now, when there are anniversary screenings all over the place, whether or not there will be an Asian reporter on stage with the CRA team also reflecting back on what it was like to see her/himself represented in a major Hollywood production and how it was only the beginning, how for you it became normal, and you won’t have to wait a quarter of a century for it to happen again. I know you’re out there. I can’t wait for this to happen to you.
Have a great weekend!
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
