Manisha Krishnan: OK. So it sounds like you’re potentially open. Basically, you don’t close the door to working with AI?
Work I: I don’t know.
Manisha Krishnan: OK. That’s fair. I want to talk a little Crazy affluent Asians because I love this movie, but I’m also wondering if you had any concerns about being typecast for doing Asian projects? This film had a huge impact on the national team. Did you also feel very responsible when you took on this project?
Work I: Yes. I mean, there’s a reason I did it, because I was so afraid to talk about being Asian American. First of all, as soon as you put the label on yourself, “Oh, you’re an Asian-American director,” and I feel like, “Oh, they’re just going to just send him all the Asian scripts.” And that’s what I was afraid of. I just wanted to be seen as a director, and besides, I don’t have all the answers to my cultural identity crisis.
And that’s what I did at that point, no matter what year it was Now you see me 2. I had ten years of filmmaking and worked with great actors like Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson. And I realized that I thought, “Oh, I can hang out with these people. Oh, I think I deserve to be here now, after ten years of doing this.” And then I looked around and thought, “Oh, anyone can make this movie.” I had to go back and think, “Well, what do I want to say about this thing that I now know how to use?”
And it was about my cultural identity crisis, something I thought about a lot while at Chef Chu’s restaurant. My parents when I saw people come and treat the servers the way you want them to be treated but they treated my parents badly sometimes not all the customers but sometimes I saw it. And I get really mad at my dad, like, “Kick them out, man. What are you doing?” My parents sat me down and said, “Listen, we’re ambassadors here. We’re the first Chinese family this family has ever seen. That’s why they think we’re a certain way and they treat us a certain way. But first of all, we’re taking their money…”