Deadline Hollywood - Sponsored Issue - Disney+ - 06/08/23 by Deadline Hollywood

HOW DISNEY+ ADAPTED A BELOVED GRAPHIC TOME BY GENE LUEN YANG

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A NOVEL APPROACH

FEATURES

THE AMERICAN DREAM

How American Born Chinese tells a universal story of the immigrant experience through a teen’s eyes.

8 FROM PAGE TO SCREEN

Author Gene Luen Yang saw his life-long dreamed fullfilled:

“It’s all been incredibly surreal.”

MICHELLE YEOH & KE HUY QUAN

Oscar-winning actors share what making the series meant to them: “It’s about family, it’s about love.”

FROM GODS TO MEN

Costumers were respectful of Chinese gods and goddesses by mixing old and new designs.

THE PLAYERS

The incredible cast of actors and the characters they portray.

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FOREIGN EXCHANGE

Bringing character-driven adventures to life is one of the main cornerstones of Disney Branded Television, so it wasn’t a difficult decision in 2021 to give a straight-to-series order to American Born Chinese, an action-comedy series based on the graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang.

Published in 2006, American Born Chinese tells the story of Jin Wang (MacGyver’s Ben Wang), an average teenager juggling his high school social life with his immigrant home life. When he meets a new foreign student on the first day of the school year, worlds collide as Jin is unwittingly entangled in a battle of Chinese mythological gods. The action-comedy that stars Michelle Yeoh as a celestial being named Guanyin, along with her Everything Everywhere All At Once co-star Ke Huy Quan as actor/high school teacher Jamie Yao, explores issues of identity, culture and family—just the kind of show Disney+ was after.

“This is a great universal story that moves between worlds and explores the impact of culture, identity, and acceptance through the lens of adolescence,” Disney Branded TV’s Ayo Davis says.

Written and executive produced by Bob’s

BY LYNETTE RICE

Burgers executive producer Kelvin Yu and his brother, Charles Yu (Westworld), the series is executive produced by Melvin Mar, Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), Jake Kasdan (Doogie Kameāloha, M.D.) and Erin O’Malley (Doogie Kameāloha, M.D.). Asher Goldstein (Just Mercy) and Yang are also executive producers while Kelvin Yu serves as showrunner on the series.

“It started with a really important nucleus, which was Gene and Kelvin,” Mar says. “That was the main creative push. And that yielded an amazing script. A script that attracts Destin Daniel Cretton, who’s the kind of director that can say, ‘You know, I just worked with Michelle Yeoh [on 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings]. I really feel like she should play Guanyin. I think I’m going to call her.’ And you say, yeah, call her. Right? Let’s see how that goes. And then two days later she emails and says, ‘I want to be a part of this.’ It took me a second to fully process that Michelle Yeoh had emailed me, saying she wants to be part of the show.

“When I got over that, that led to Daniel Wu and Ke Huy Quan,” Mar continues. “It just starts rolling like a snowball. We find the kids.

AMERICAN BORN CHINESE TELLS “A GREAT UNIVERSAL STORY” OF THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE THROUGH A TEEN’S EYES

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We do the same thing behind the scenes. It really was the Asian American all-star game in front of and behind the camera.”

Before filming commenced, Yang and the EPs made a few adjustments to so the story would feel more contemporary. Gone is one of the more notorious characters in Yang’s graphic novel—Chin-Kee, a cousin character that is intentionally offensive with buck teeth and slant eyes who haunts Jin. Yang knew the role, which was the “embodiment of all the negative Asian and Asian American stereotypes,” would never work for the series.

“When we talked about how to move him from the book to the screen, I was worried that that character would show up as decontextualized clips on YouTube that would be the exact opposite of what I was trying to do with the book,” says Yang. “That was one of the things that made me hesitate about pursuing any sort of adaptation. Kelvin came up with an incredibly smart solution. Jamie Yao is kind of an amalgamation of what we find in the book and Kelvin’s own experience as an Asian American actor.”

The writers also added parents for Jin, played by Chin Han (The Blacklist) and Yeo

Yann Yann (Rise of the Legend). “The overall philosophy of the show or the themes of the show is we are linked to our parents, right? But this show very much sits in our generation, meaning the first generation that’s born in this country,” Mar says. “And you can’t fully do that without making the parents much more a part of it. In a finite, 200-page graphic novel, you can’t do that. But if you’re going to make an eightepisode show hoping for multiple seasons, you want more characters.”

In fact, the writers made sure to populate the show with additional Chinese Gods so the story can “go in multiple directions,” Mar added—even though no character seems to come close to Yeoh’s depiction of a mythological being. Mar says he will never forget the moment when they filmed her descending from the ceiling of Jin’s high school for the first episode.

“We were all standing there, and it was the first time that Michelle came on the set. The way that the scene was set up and the descent of that character … it was really emotional for me,” recalls Mar. “I teared up and just couldn’t believe it. It was a little overwhelming, you know?” ★

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From left: Destin Daniel Cretton, Ben Wang and Jimmy Liu; Michelle Yeoh on set; writer/creator Gene Luen Yang.

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A NOVEL IDEA

AMERICAN BORN CHINESE FULFILLS A LIFE-LONG DREAM FOR AUTHOR GENE LUEN YANG

BY LYNETTE RICE

The road to American Born Chinese began in Northern California in the ’70s, when a young Gene Luen Yang—the son of an electrical engineer and a computer programmer—knew what he wanted to do for a living before even finishing grade school.

He longed for a career as a Disney animator.

In fact, Yang was such a fan of the Happiest Place on Earth, he carried some sort of Mickey Mouse item—wallet, watch, belt buckle, t-shirt, you name it—whenever he left his house. And when his mom took him to a local comic bookstore in the fifth grade, he knew he had found his calling.

But when Yang indicated a desire to study art at UC Berkeley, his dad insisted that he choose a more practical major. So, Yang enrolled in computer science instead. But his love for animation never subsided. By 1996, Yang was self-publishing his own comics under the Humble imprint while making ends meet as a full-time high school teacher. First came the Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks franchise before he conceived American Born Chinese, the story of a young secondgeneration immigrant who struggles with his Chinese American identity.

The graphic novel went on to earn multiple accolades, including the 2006 National Book

Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature and the winner of the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album. Still considered a staple of American literature, American Born Chinese continues to be recommended to teachers for classroom instruction. So, when Disney+ came calling with the request to adapt the graphic novel for streaming, Yang’s childhood dreams finally came true.

“I’ve used this word again and again, because it’s the best word to describe my life right now. It feels very surreal,” Yang says. “It sometimes feels like I am not living my life. I’m still a cartoonist. I’m a cartoonist, which means my focus is on comic books and graphic novels. It’s on books. So, to go from that to doing a screening at the White House of the first episode, it’s all been incredibly surreal. For a long time, even during filming, I was like, I’m not really going to believe this until it shows up on TV.”

The funniest, or most humbling moment, rather, was when Yang called his dad to tell him about the show. “He’s an immigrant father and he reacted the way an immigrant father would,” Yang says. “I was like ‘Dad, they’re going to turn American Born Chinese into a television show.’ He pauses and then goes, ‘So, does this mean it’ll never be a movie?’ It’s such an emigrant dad thing to say.” ★

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MICHELLE YEOH & KE HUY QUAN

AMERICAN BORN CHINESE STARS ON TELLING A STORY THAT’S “RELATABLE TO EVERYONE OF ALL AGES”

BY LYNETTE RICE

Why did you want to be part of American Born Chinese?

MICHELLE YEOH (Guanyin): It’s such an important story to be told. It’s not just for the American-born Chinese. It is for every single person out there who feels they’re not seen or heard. What I love is the exchange and understanding of the Chinese culture, the mythological characters that probably a lot of people don’t know about.

KE HUY QUAN (Jamie Yao/Freddy Wong): I think the series will be relatable for everyone of all ages because the struggle to fit in is a universal experience that we all face. American Born Chinese mainly focuses on Jin Wang, an Asian American kid who’s just trying to fit in at his high school. We’ve all been there. You know, regardless of where you grew up, or who you are. It’s so thrilling to be holding up a script that might have never made it into the stack years ago because of how difficult it was for us to get here. I don’t take for granted for a second how lucky I am to be a part of this project.

Will fans of Everything Everywhere All at Once, which helped both of you earn your first Academy Awards, enjoy watching American Born Chinese?

YEOH: It’s very relatable because it’s about family. It’s about love. It’s about finding your self-worth. In American Born Chinese, instead of going through the multiverse, you are going into an immortal world, in the heavens of Chinese culture. So, it will be a different kind of ride, but at the same time, it will be just as dynamic and an exciting one.

QUAN: When Gene Yang first released the book, he was shocked to see all of these powerful responses from his readers. People all over the world reached out to him in order to share their experiences of what’s it like to feel like an outsider and how this story made them feel less alone. I can’t wait for this story to reach an even wider audience. I hope our series shows people the importance of just giving each other a little bit more love.

What was it like reuniting with old friends from other projects?

YEOH: Everything Everywhere All at Once hadn’t even been released yet when filming began. It was nice to come together with people that you already know and respect and love, but more importantly, to meet with more filmmakers and collaborators like creator Kelvin Yu and Lucy Liu, who directed some of the episodes.

QUAN: Fun fact! Michelle did her first movie in 1984 and that’s when I first got my start in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I waited 38 years to unite with her on screen. I got my dream when we did Everything Everywhere All at Once. So, to be able to reunite with her on this one, it’s quite special. I love this woman.★

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ALL DRESSED UP

COSTUMERS BALANCED THE NEW AND THE OLD TO CREATE DESIGNS THAT WERE “RESPECTFUL” OF CHINESE GODS AND GODDESSES

BY KATIE CAMPIONE

Joy Cretton had a hefty goal for the costumes on the Disney+ series American Born Chinese. Pay homage to the ancient gods of Chinese mythology—which have been depicted countless times throughout history and revered for tens of thousands of years—in a modern way that also felt authentic to the Chinese American experience.

“I’m actually Japanese and not Chinese,” Cretton says. “I think the biggest thing for me was I knew that we had to get it right, and there was a lot of pressure that I put on myself to just make sure that it was a good representation, and we were being really respectful of all these gods and goddesses that people grew up with. They have so much history.”

American Born Chinese, based on the graphic novel of the same name, follows average teen Jin Wang, who is just trying to balance school and his home life when he is unknowingly thrust into a battle between Chinese mythical gods.

Cretton worked with fashion designers Prabal Gurung and Phillip Lim to create the looks for two of the show’s main characters, Michelle Yeoh’s Guanyin (the Goddess of Mercy) and Daniel Wu’s Monkey King, also known as Sun Wukong.

“There’s so many beautiful depictions of Guanyin and Sun Wukong, so we kind of pulled little bits that felt like signifying features that people will be like, ‘Oh, yeah,’ and then tried to do a modern take on it,” Cretton says.

Luckily, showrunner Kelvin Yu put the creative freedom in Cretton’s hands to put a new spin on these ancient gods, which the costume designer called “a really big gift.” Cretton also looked to the actors themselves for inspiration, because “they were all so perfect for the character that we’re playing.” Take Yeoh for example, who Cretton explained was part of the entire creative process for Guanyin’s costumes.

“She gave a lot of notes because she just knew Guanyin so well,” Cretton says. She points to Guanyin’s gold dress as one of her favorite designs from the show, because of the playfulness it exudes, which came directly from collaborating with Yeoh.

That level of specificity was extended to all the costumes in the show, not just the mythological gods.

“Even Simon and Christine, the parents, those are specific people that I know that shopped at the Asian grocery store,” Cretton says. “Everything was very thought out.” ★

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Clockwise from top left: Daniel Wu as The Monkey King; Michelle Yeoh as Guanyin; Daniel Wu and Leonard Wu; Sun Wukong; and, from left, Sydney Taylor, Sophie Reynolds and Ben Wang.

AMERICAN BORN CHINESE CAST OF CHARACTERS

Jin Wang (pronounced Jin Wong), played by Ben Wang. Jin is an American teen and son of immigrant parents who is struggling to carve out who he’s supposed to be socially and culturally.

Sun Wei-Chen (pronounced Way-Chen), played by Jimmy Liu. He’s Jin’s confident friend who has just arrived in the United States, but whose sweet demeanor belies the deeper mystery of his true identity.

Guanyin (Pronounced Gwan Yin), played by Michelle Yeoh. Guanyin has come to earth to help guide Wei-Chen on his quest. To protect her identity on earth, she dresses in unassuming clothing and lets everyone assume she is Wei-Chen’s “auntie.”

Christine Wang, played Yeo Yann Yann. Jin’s mom is a strong-willed, opinionated woman with a sly wit. She loves her family deeply.

Simon Wang, played by Chin Han. Jin’s father is a hard-working, devoted father and husband who is bumping up against the “bamboo ceiling” at his job.

Sun Wukong (pronounced Sun Woo-Kong), aka The Monkey King, played by Daniel Wu He’s the legendary, all-powerful god of the Chinese epic Journey to the West, who enters our world in search of his son.

Jamie Yao, played by Ke Huy Quan. Jamie is a high school teacher-cum-actor. He played