At Face Value: Q&A with Filmmaker Alice Wu

Deep down, Alice Wu thinks everyone wants the same thing: love. Her film ‘Saving Face’ explores the reality of the quest, complications and all.

By LYNDA LIN, Assistant Editor, Pacific Citizen

“If you ever want to see looks of boredom, tell people you are writing a screenplay,” said Alice Wu with a laugh that punctuates the irony of the statement. Five years ago, she was working at Microsoft in Seattle when she started writing a “love letter” to her mom — an eventual screenplay about the intergenerational tugs of Chinese American families that would become her first full-length feature film, “Saving Face.”

“It’s a lot less lonely now,” said Wu by telephone from her hotel room in Seattle about her single-minded sojourn into filmmaking. And in an industry where hard work and passion doesn’t necessarily add up to success, Wu managed to defy the odds. Her first film was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics for distribution and opened Memorial Day weekend in limited release.

“Saving Face,” is a touching story about a daughter’s (Michelle Krusiec) struggle to keep her lesbian love affair with a dancer (Lynn Chen) a secret from her traditional, but scandalously pregnant, mother (Joan Chen) in order to save face. Love, the film’s motif, crosses multiple generations and creates dilemmas as well as some truly tender mother/daughter moments.

“I wrote [the screenplay] as a love letter to my mother and it’s a wonderful bonus that it’s just resonating with people,” said Wu adding that her main objective was capturing truth. She hates seeing characters onscreen speaking English when, in reality, they would speak in their native tongue. In “Saving Face,” the mother speaks Mandarin and the daughter naturally responds in English.

Back in the city where Wu worked for Bill Gates and began writing, “Saving Face,” the filmmaker talks exclusively to the Pacific Citizen about love, realness and the eternally gorgeous Joan Chen.

Pacific Citizen: How surreal is all the publicity and media attention?

Alice Wu: Totally surreal. It’s been a whirlwind. The response has been so positive. It’s amazing seeing something that’s so personal to you mean so much to so many others as well. It’s totally validating in that way because I like to think that no matter who you are, we all want to be loved. In a way, the film is much larger than I am … the most surreal part is when I have to go on stage by myself when I really want to bring everyone up so that people can see how many hearts went into the film.

PC: What advice do you give to young professionals hoping to make a career change like you did?

AW: Even though I wrote the script, I didn’t think that I would become a filmmaker. It would have killed me if I had handed it to someone else to make. People have come up to me after screenings and said, ‘I’m a lawyer’ or ‘I’m an IT specialist,’ but they’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker, they just don’t know where to start. I tell them I didn’t know either. Making a film is really hard, but you really have to love your story. When it’s taking years and no one is paying attention, if you love the story, it makes it easier.

PC: You put so much into fleshing out your characters. Which is your favorite?

AW: I love them all. Of course I love the mother. I love Cho (Nathanael Geng). I think he’s so sweet! Of course anyone could imagine what it would be like to like someone for 15 years and that person not have a clue (laughs). After awhile the characters take on their own life and start telling me what to do. They start arguing back, ‘No. I would never do that!’

PC: The love scene was one of the few recent APA mainstream films to go topless. Can you talk about your decision to push the envelope?

AW: That scene is not about sex and for me to make a scene sexy, you have to focus on the intimacy … the characters are so curious about each other and connected — that’s what makes the scene sexy. It’s not about the sex. It’s about what happens when the mother calls. I could have done it so that they were covered up … but when you’re in bed you’re not artfully covered up. I think that’s a gigantic cheat. It’s this one moment that Wil (Lynn Chen) is being completely free … I think that makes the scene much stronger.

PC: How did a screen legend like Joan Chen join the cast?

AW: Initially, I didn’t think Joan was right for the role. For one, she’s never done comedy and for another, she’s one of the most beautiful women. She expressed interest a second time and I said, ‘Well then you really have to start smoking and drinking so that you look the part because I’m going to costume you in the way that you’ve probably never been costumed before and probably may never want to again!’ And she said ‘Okay. I’ll go with you there.’ She’s the consummate actor.

PC: What are you working on next?

AW: The reality is right now, it’s like a full time job promoting the film and I’m praying that it will do well and start playing in the middle of the country and smaller markets. It’s almost like having children. Just because you have one, you think, ‘Oh. I can have another,’ but you don’t throw away the first!

Other Recent Readings of Interest by Lynda Lin

• Q&A: Filmmaker Georgia Lee
  On dropping out of Harvard to take on Hollywood with Red Doors
• Putting the Hustle Back In Kung Fu
  Q&A with Stephen Chow on his Kung Fu Hustle
• Arts, Culture & Media archives at Asian American Village