Bowen Yang Had 'Hope' for an 'Honest' Future With His Family as a Gay Man Thanks to 1st 'Wedding Banquet'
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00:00I was coming at this from the perspective of how people need each other, like how are you necessary in an arrangement like marriage, like IVF, like Chris specifically, my character, is kind of in this liminal zone with that.
00:15He's not sure what he is kind of contributing to this dynamic and then he realizes by the end that just by being present in this group of four that he's a very essential part of these people's lives.
00:28So yeah, I know that's a catch-all, but that's what I was coming in with.
00:33I was just really excited to tell a queer story with a bunch of queer folks and I think that the film does such a good job of just illuminating such a plethora of different queer experiences.
00:47Yeah, and that was the thing that I was really excited about.
00:50It's really hard to say one thing but I think the fun answer is the only actor attached at that point to Andrew Ahn's film,
00:57who I love as a filmmaker already, was Bowen Yang.
01:00And Bowen Yang has been just kind of a household name for us for a minute because my mom recognized in him immediately her son.
01:10It sounds silly.
01:13It was like, oh God, Andrew, don't tell Bowen this.
01:16It's too heavy, it's too whatever, too much pressure.
01:19But my mom, you know, you talk about the loss of pregnancy element.
01:25My mom had lost a baby before she got pregnant with me that she knew was going to be a boy.
01:29His name was going to be August.
01:30So we grew up, I grew up with this knowledge of who this boy was that, you know, if he were here I wouldn't be.
01:36I think the overlap, the timing didn't work out.
01:39So I just felt his presence growing up and my mom and I would kind of acknowledge it and talk about him,
01:45who he would have been, how he would have been, what his sense of humor was, what he would have been good at.
01:50And then one day we're watching SNL and mom sees Bowen and sees August immediately.
01:55She's like, that's my son, there he is.
01:58So I wanted to give my mom that gift of having both of her kids, her earthly body child and her star baby on screen together.
02:05I mean, thankfully I'm at the age now where that embarrassment has transmuted into like gratitude and oh my gosh,
02:12like all those moments of my parents or my family embarrassing me, quote unquote,
02:17is just them being present in my life.
02:20Like I would rather have family embarrass me than not have those stories because it just means that they care.
02:26It just means that they were there for you when at the time you didn't want them there.
02:30But like I would never, ever, ever wish that they would be absent instead in that scenario.
02:35Um, gosh, I, I would have so many moments of my mom picking me up from school and just that classic like high school movie trope of like,
02:46drop me off like a block away, like that kind of thing.
02:49Like that, that's, that's my version.
02:51So true.
02:52My dad goes out of his way sometimes.
02:55I was a new kid in a new school, just moved off my reservation, only native kid in the school.
03:00I was already kind of like a nobody knew what to do with me sort of thing.
03:04Plus it was sixth grade.
03:05So that's a cruel time to jump into a social group that you're just the new, you're the fresh meat with.
03:11And my dad just, I swear this man set me up.
03:16I talked about my best friend in the world, Sapphire Diamond Rank.
03:20She's real.
03:21We have the same birthday.
03:22She's from my reservation.
03:24Um, she's like maybe the one Jewish girl living on the Blackfeet reservation.
03:28Um, best friends, like love my life, still one of my best friends.
03:33Um, she's the lawyer for Agua Caliente Tribe in Palm Springs.
03:37She's just a badass.
03:38Um, but I would tell, I'd get made fun of by other kids.
03:42It's like, you don't have any friends.
03:44You're, you don't, you like, nobody likes you.
03:46You don't have any friends.
03:47I'm like, I do have a friend.
03:48My best friend is named Sapphire Diamond Rank.
03:50We have the same birthday.
03:51And of course, every sixth grader is like, oh, bullshit.
03:54No!
03:55Sapphire Diamond Ring.
03:57No, Diamond Ring.
03:58Diamond Ring.
03:59And then my dad comes to class for a parent visit day to help us all dissect sheep brains
04:05in science class.
04:06I'm like, dad, tell them Sapphire's real.
04:08And dad, oh, honey, I thought you figured out she was an imaginary friend a long time ago.
04:13I'm like, what?
04:14You, you betrayed her.
04:16He was gag fighting.
04:18But he just, he just, he just based on the person?
04:21No, no, he was intentional wages.
04:23Oh, come on.
04:25No.
04:26All that was funny is the next year Sapphire visited me and met everybody.
04:30And yeah.
04:31She sounds amazing.
04:32Yeah.
04:33She's great.
04:34Oh my gosh.
04:35She's badass.