Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 547 - Why Is Dustin Nguyen Still Optimistic After 40 Years In Hollywood? - Dustin Nguyen

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547 - Why Is Dustin Nguyen Still Optimistic After 40 Years In Hollywood? - Dustin Nguyen · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast again special special moment we are at the Film Festival.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: We are in the Bower's Museum and today I am joined by Anderson Wing.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is my third time sitting with you, but there's still so much more to talk about.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the podcast.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope people are not bored by now seeing my face.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, but thank you for having me again.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Always a pleasure.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just being here is a fantastic.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we're bored as the actual opposite of the numbers that are showing up.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I hate to really draw a focus through that.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the popularity that you have on my podcast is insane.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really a test rig, my daughter is just keep cooking on it.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, thank you.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, I didn't, I mean, silly.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, dad joke.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am not lost on like our close today though.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted to bring that up.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're wearing knit colored polo's and loose baggy pants, but reverse in color.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's definitely something to eat over this.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why I enjoy talking to you.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're vibrating in the same frequency.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, you know you are in town because the did film festival wants to honor you You're being given an inspiration award and that is such a huge Thing to to come to the video film festival because the 23 years of this has been around You've actually been around longer than the video festival and the effect that you've had on
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I always say men like my generation is profound and I want to thank you today for coming on the podcast to talk about, yeah, these notions of inspiration to future generations.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Ken.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know how to respond to that, but
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, when I get the news that I was receiving this honor, I have some time to give it some thought, you know, come to terms with it because, you know, I think I might share with you in the past, you're so busy.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: putting one foot in front of the others, especially with your career and doing your work and you know, you know, I often don't really reflect back on where I've come from and where I am today.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the idea of being recognized or being in inspiration is of course is an honor, and it feels a little strange too, and in some ways, you know, and but I think I
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Come back to the idea that if I can, if I have done something in my career so far, that it inspired somebody to go and achieve their dreams to me.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's truly it, honor.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lincoln, I am your 45.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe it turned 40 miles so quickly, I was like, you know, time creeps up on you, but I got a lot of years ahead, still.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I look into the landscape of Asian male actors.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we're still in the desert.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: What gives?
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: What needs to change more DTS, guys?
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: More, I mean, what do we need?
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it, uh, it's a supply and demand thing?
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it because American or international filmgoers don't want to see Asians on screen or is it because we're not creating our own opportunities?
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a deep question.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a combination of those things
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Look, I mean, we're talking, we're talking in this landscape, meaning the Western landscape, or America, Hollywood, producing content.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: The fact of the matter is, I'm trying to come, okay, you take a talent like, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise,
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: with the drive, the talent, the desire.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: If they were to try to come up in their career in China.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: With the Chinese audience, Chinese consumers, Asian consumers, despite all of their charisma and talent trying to come up the rank, I would say they wouldn't get too far.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not because they don't have what it takes.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a supply and demand thing.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: People like to watch their own kinds, for the most part, on screen, representation.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's necessarily a racist thing that might be some, but I think people are just part of it.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're comfortable watching their own kinds, right?
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So in America, we have a lot of Asian-American talents.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And God knows it improved a lot since I started,
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we are still the minority in numbers and in voice and I think that's the biggest challenge.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the real issue is if you're an audience member, you're looking on screen, you can't relate to somebody who looks different.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's really the issue.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think so, you know, because you're not, it's a, it's a, it's a foreign thing.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you're in the big cities a little different, you know, people are more exposed now into national content, you know, you got that streamers than Netflix.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not like when you and I were young, you have to go to an art house, film to see an on American film, you know, these days people are exposed to the Korean pop culture, yeah.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, that's only in like,
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: New York City, California, the big cities, I mean, the average American still probably don't even know the movie Paris height, which one in Oscar?
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, you know, big film.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it convinces that, you know, it just, it's just a natural human thing, you, you, you're comfortable watching someone, you can relate to a character on screen,
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: that is like you, you know, if I were to do a film about an author-dox-jews,
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: the whole community, the whole culture.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would work my butt off to research everything to make sure I'm doing a justice, but I still will not do a justice because it's not in me, you know.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I, there are things that nuances that culture, that only they can do, represent themselves.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that much.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that much.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that much.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that much.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that much.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that much.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, to do a thing, to make films, to make content that speaks to the Vietnamese voice, or the Vietnamese American voice, or whatever you want to call it, and that cannot stop.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have to keep doing that.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one day we get better and they get better and they get better because you have to keep getting content out there and educate people and get them be familiar with eating
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of cool to like for like non- Vietnamese people to go and have a been made in files, you know that, you know what I mean?
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that that Orthodox Jew, visual of a Hasidic person thinking in Brooklyn, you know, with their curls, no matter what you do, what kind of costume you put on,
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to look like that and then genetically inside of you like the way we think and carry ourselves we can look like that and that really trickles down to like these mainstream white roles and I feel like
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: We as in the Asian American community don't talk enough about like this fact that the audience that are watching us can't relate to what we are presenting and so the creators of like the content of the movies that we are TV that we're consuming something like beef you can look at it and you go that's cutting edge because you could see the anger
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: the rage and you as a human being can identify with that.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, both seasons are like that to me.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the universal themes and that's, that's the trick.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, how do we make content that retains?
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: our uniqueness, but at the same time you tap into the universal themes of being human.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because it's just the exterior, you know, that's the initial pushback, pushback, you know.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then you can get them past that.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: with themes that they can relate to, which is what a good storytelling is about.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I just use Parasite, there's many other examples, but it's a wonderful movie, it texts the people in the world that they've never been before, especially for Westerners.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the themes and emotions are strong enough in universal enough there, I think, for people to appreciate it.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I struggle with where you are right now.
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talk about you spending time in Vietnam all those years, creating films in Vietnam.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: But now you're in the mainstream with warrior, with dope thief.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: All of these projects are like in the mainstream.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if I was to hunger for a parasite coming out of the Vietnamese American,
• 10:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: What, what, how does that happen?
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, if you're not sort of inside of our community doing and developing for, you know, in Vietnam or here in the Vietnamese American and you're being pulled into the mainstream.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I guess my question is, is that something that, because we're talking about inspiration, something that you ponder and you think about, which is creating our own pipeline of parasite.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, this is just my own take on at the years that I've spent in the industry here in America is you've got to kind of go by steps, you know, and I've talked to some friends of my who are Asian-American to have done it and doing it.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have to do in steps and it's almost like a trojan horse, you know, you have to kind of get in there with something small first, you know, first you got to be in there and then you get in there with something small and you build a bigger and bigger, like for example and I'm not calling you to myself, but when I'm cast in something like dope-feet, for example, you know, it's a predominantly
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, non-Asian show, but it happens to have a Vietnamese American character that I was written in it, which was a pity rare, and it's written with, with...
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: delicacy with some respect and awareness awareness and so you take that right for me you know you take that and where I feel that I can contribute into sort of advancing it towards a parasite someday is that I try to inject a lot of my own input into the character and there's certain things about the Vietnamese culture
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: that I had suggested to the show running the writers and incorporate that it's not in the script into the characters and the relationship and how I interact with my mother and the show and and so on and it becomes something more than what it was written and I think you know you start to do that right on that small level and then if you were to if you were an
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, you know, you write things at their commission and then you slow to you earn and you start to introduce things of our own culture and our own voice and that's kind of how you do it, you know, and I think it's good that
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: that you can get into the system because that's what it takes first, you know, I don't know that.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: That it's clear.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's very clear.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to happen overnight with the text time to build a small building blocks.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I look at, again, I look super fakes as an example of the show, just Diffa Peacock that's coming out and exploring.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, the character originally was written Chinese, because it's all about Chinese
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: My age has had a hard time getting me seen for it because I'm not Chinese and Vietnamese.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they want to be very authentic and I appreciate it, you know, with the Chinese-American experience.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, through perseverance, my age and finally got them to see me and make a long story short, I don't get in cash.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then they, I didn't ask for, you know, from the do it, they actually start to incorporate my Vietnameseness into the Chinese characters and made it a character that's half and half.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And all of these things, and my point is, you know, people are open to this kind of thing.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once you get in, I was able to sort of incorporate some of that uniqueness that is Vietnamese
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, it worked that way, can you know?
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think about the essence of who an artist is.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like Dustin Wing is this essence.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when I think about,
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: the slow evolution of the work that you do in Hollywood, it becomes a long, four-year history that continues.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: But we know, we've talked about this.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's many difficult times during that time.
• 15:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But to have an agent move you like that, right?
• 15:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's magical in itself.
• 15:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm blessed to have them, yeah, I'm blessed to have them.
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do we find that as a young man who's 22 coming out of college, moving to Hollywood and trying to bust into the, or a young woman who's, how do they figure like,
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: that essence to let agents know, how do they build up the essence?
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do they make it think or how do they layer themselves to, so that when the agent goes out and pitches them, that there is sellable essence there.
• 16:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is gonna sound very cliche, but I swear by it, you know, I
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I truly believe in it and that's what have gotten me through the 40 years that I've been on this journey, which is you have to, first of all, you have to be doing it for a young person to get into this business, you have to do it for the right reasons and what are those.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it depends on who you are, but I tell you what the wrong reasons are, because then once you eliminate what the wrong reasons are, hopefully you have the right reasons, which is if you're doing it for fame, to be famous, to be glamorous, those are all the wrong reasons, and you find out very quickly, and most of those kind of people
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to do it as something that you have to do, and it sounds art history and potentially pretentious, but you do it because you have this dying need to express yourself through your art.
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: whatever it is, dancing, singing, acting, directing, writing, and you express who you are, and it's hard when you're young person too.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was there.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: We all were there.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're trying to find yourself who are you, but you can only work with what you are and what you have, right?
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you build a craft, you know, not unlike any other professions.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want to be a surgeon.
• 17:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: You better go to school, you know, 10, 12, 14 years.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: You build your craft, you put everything you have in it, and you got to have faith in yourself.
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can't, and I've been there, you know, you can't try to be somebody else, because you're not, you know, it is a disadvantage to be,
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: non-white to be Vietnamese-American even with the Asian-American, you know, the Chinese have been here longer.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Japanese have been here longer.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't move these a lot more than, you know, there's more stories about them.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Vietnamese, you know, we kind of like the real, the real, the small-click, and there might be another click smaller than that, so maybe, yeah, you know, but, you know, my point is, and it's hard, you know, you're like, well, I'm being myself, but nobody wants
• 18:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: right, but you cannot think like that, you know, and if you do, you sober up, you've believed in yourself and you're working, expressing yourself the best way you can, and I truly believe the right people will see that.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I believe that's what happened to me.
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, luck has a lot to do with it.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but, you know, again, when I, when I started out, man, you know, I was confused, you know, first of all, everybody, I think there's only two people that that really believe in me, you know?
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it takes a lot, you know, you, you know, like I'm doing the right thing.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody telling me that there's no place for me in this business and, and I just keep working at it and working at it.
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yes, I was very lucky, you know, relatively speaking.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But there's a lot of heartbreaks and down times.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And those are the times you have to believe in your Vietnamese and Mac and this, whatever that is for you.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you have something to say.
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you just gotta stick with it.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where grit comes in, you know?
• 19:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: the right agent received at the right people who wants to work with you.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even, you know, I'm sure that some actors are looking at me now and they're all caught, you know, there's always somebody who wishes they did in your position, right?
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you hear, you always wish that you didn't somebody else's position.
• 20:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, either where I am right now, you know, occasionally I have to remind myself, you know, this is me, you know, this is Dustin Wren.
• 20:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever that is, I'm offering being myself, expressing myself, and the work that I do, and the work ethics that I have.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so,
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: These people don't get me, it's a little disappointing.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But hey, you know, these people really get me, right?
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you can't win them all.
• 20:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But my point, I guess, is you stay true to who you are.
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: You stay true to do the best you can do.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the right people will always come to you.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: They always come to you.
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've developed a theory over the last year, and it comes from like, you know, all of these hundreds of podcasts.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: What I'm beginning to notice is the thing that propels longevity in
• 21:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: the business or a business, creative or business or being a medical doctor or whatever, the thing that creates this sort of longevity where you can really operate with grit comes from an obsession and of sessions typically come from
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: a young mind that was traumatized or something happened in a real cool way or whatever affected that young person.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that young person carries it into the future as an obsession and then becomes, you know, really.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: For example, like my journey in podcast interviews did me as a culture I was so traumatized as a young man as a young boy being Vietnamese American in
• 21:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: spaces that I cannot ever give up the work that I do to promote the Vietnamese cultural worldwide.
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when I think about what you say about grit and the determination and doing it for the
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: the childhood trauma or whatever beauty that happened, that really fuels the obsession and then the obsession creates this space where you you will never quit.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because as long as you tap into the well of obsession, you have this itch that never stops itching.
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if we've ever talked about this before because this is sort of like a new thing that I developed.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I just interviewed a pianist the other day and her entire family, mom dad, brothers, sisters were all musicians.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: She said, I'm the only one in the family who I can't do anything else.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is all I can do.
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is it for you that created this, I mean, it has to be enough session because if it's on an obsession, you can't get this far.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Same with Cole Kirchin, 80 something years old.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's still grinding out there like you and making amazing work.
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: there's no like slowing down for you and her.
• 23:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're just watching it being inspired by this.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we're like, there's no slowing down for you, Dustin.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, obsession, certainly, you know, that's one way to put it.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you ask yourself, you know, whatever feel that is, you mentioned, would I rather be doing something else?
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: and what would that be, and when you ask that question, it tells you very quickly.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's what it takes, you know, whether you want to call it obsession, focus, delusion.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what are some of the things that happen to you?
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: That could be an illusion.
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's funny, you know, I just made a joke, but it's somewhat I'm thinking about it.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you really look at, yes, add it, you have to have a certain amount of delusion.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: about it and to keep going.
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have to have it.
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: You get it.
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, because so many people will tell you, you're not cut out for it, man.
• 24:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have it.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: You shouldn't be doing this.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're never going to make it.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You hear that all the time, and you have to be deluded in somewhat psychotic to just tune all of that out.
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, and you just, I remember, you know, when I first started out,
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to close college, I was in this beginning acting class in the teacher that invited this really big shot photographer from Los Angeles who shoot headshots for actors and things like that and he would come down and as a special guest and he would sort of advise us in our career and but mainly it was that remember the day it was about typing what type of you
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he goes through everybody.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you got, oh, yeah, this guy's a leading man.
• 25:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: This guy's a leading woman.
• 25:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And romantically, blah, blah, blah, boy next door.
• 25:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like the last one, you know, it was kind of timid.
• 25:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he looked at me and he said, he said, yeah, you would work a lot.
• 25:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember it.
• 25:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: How you would work a lot if you were in China?
• 25:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And instead it was a straight face and you didn't mean to offend me, I think it was a very matter of fact.
• 25:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: He says, you were working a lot, you know?
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're in China, you're making films in Hong Kong.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But there's not a little place where you're in Hollywood, right?
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember I was crushed, right, for like three, four, five seconds.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember it's just feeling really angry.
• 25:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember thinking, I don't think
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why not, you know, how dare you reduce me down to this type?
• 25:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And all of that trigger, you know, being a refugee, being a second class citizen, being coming here and, you know, as a war refugee, all of these things, you know, and, but, you know, it was the biggest lesson I learned that day because, again, it's very
• 26:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: because he dared to tell me that there was no place for me.
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what drove me, you know, to this day.
• 26:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I became good friends with him late on.
• 26:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because he ended up shooting my headshot and every time I book a great, you know, we talk about it.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But is that, I think it needs that kind of trauma.
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's like a trauma.
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's that kind of delusion, obsession, anger.
• 26:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, all of that, you know, all of that, and, and then you come to terms with it as you matures, and yeah, are you?
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: ever going to go back to Vietnam to make films, to make movies, yeah, to make movies that you were looking for language films.
• 27:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I would love to see like, you know, I talked to you about it before, but like a godfather movie in Vietnam.
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think Guantam back then had that
• 27:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Before they clean it all up, I remember by the river.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: We used to drive by and be like, this is gang-infested with me, and I think about, I romanticize about that.
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the guys that can really hammer this down well need to have technical expertise about how to put the Godfather.
• 27:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you need an operatic, I think, take to it.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think I got one or two Vietnamese films in me, still maybe.
• 28:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I put in those 10s, 12 years, making films in Vietnam, some of the greatest...
• 28:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: years of making movies and some of the...
• 28:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've gotten countered crazy stuff there and the industry there that can be quite disheartening, you know.
• 28:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you tell us some examples?
• 28:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, it's... First of all, it's a...
• 28:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a...
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Certainly back when I was making films there, and we were talking about, you know, 15 years ago.
• 28:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: The whole industry was very, very, very, very, it would just get on its feet.
• 28:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: The industry, you know, the craftsmen and the people working in the industry wasn't exposed to any sort of the way of doing things, efficient ways of making movies, you know, they kind of typical Vietnamese way, figured out as you go along, because you know, you got no one teaching you.
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And having made films in America, with the whole system, the infrastructure that's in Hollywood for years, you know?
• 29:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, one of the best filmmakers in the world that you've got many years to figure it out.
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's that clash of the way you think and the work ethics and the lack of experience.
• 29:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was very hard for me at first.
• 29:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, things like, I give you an example, you know, I remember I was about to make my first film there, a film called Daymighten, romantic comedy, and met some some local directors producers with a top of their field at the time.
• 29:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the things we talked about, I don't know how it came up.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Back then, they were still making movies without recording a live sound.
• 29:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they were 80, 80, 80 gold.
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You shoot the pictures and the actor would just probably whatever, and then they go in the studio and they'd up the sound later, did I log?
• 30:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was having this discussion with them.
• 30:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was very strange for me because that's no way to work.
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But for them, it to record life's sound is very strange and they felt it was very inefficient.
• 30:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And all of that, and the strange thing is they were entitled there, but what I'm saying, the strange thing for me was, it's like trying to justify why you need to breathe there, you know?
• 30:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, it's fine with them.
• 30:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said, look, you know, you lose so much.
• 30:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: organic emotions and the flow of emotion and the dialogue between the actors and when you're not recording live sounds and when you double it later it's no longer organic and on of that and they were convinced that that was the wrong way to do it things like that.
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know it's a very small thing but you can imagine you set the multiply 20, 30 times
• 31:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And of course, it doesn't help that you have a very limited small budget and you know, the work with, you know, even things like a first assistant director, you know, here in proper.
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: A system director would actually sketch with a shoe, didn't do, you know, solving problems.
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the productions I worked on, you know, the first, the system director is basically just fetching during coffee and cigarettes for the director, you know, and in between shots, he's like sleeping in the bus, somewhere and you can't be finding them.
• 31:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Stop, you know, and so it's frustrating when you're working in there, but at the same time you don't want to be, be arrogant or be, be confrontational.
• 31:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, Trades is this this one incident I remember I don't think people are going to believe this but
• 32:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, my leading lady on a film that that was about to do, we were about two weeks into the shoot.
• 32:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's not really the actors I want to cast, but I was pressured by the director and other people.
• 32:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we cast her completely wrong for the movie.
• 32:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: and she wouldn't show up for rehearsals, she always lay and she'd sit there, sit there, she's always at the doctor's visit.
• 32:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I've had it, and then one night, she was late, like four hours for the shoot, we about to do for the poster.
• 32:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: She calls me, and she said, I'm destined, you know, gonna talk to you when I'm done at the hospital.
• 32:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's about eight, clock a night, she comes in office, I sit her with her.
• 33:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: and she pulls something out of her purse.
• 33:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like a little white napkin wrap, something wrapped inside of it, you know, and I'm not sure what's going on here.
• 33:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to show you something, and she's sort of open, she's unfolding the napkin, I see blood stain, you know?
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: they can go, oh my god, what's going on there?
• 33:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so finally inside is some rest of fish hooks, I think, there's some shards, glass shards, and some weird writings, and she's, so what the heck is this?
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So basically, I want to take too much time in the podcast, but basically, the reason she's been sick is another actress that really wanted this part, had put a brewery spell on her.
• 33:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll boil it, I'll boil it, I'll boil it.
• 33:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's why she's been sick.
• 33:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she finally got to see a brewery smunk that has been carrying her, and this is the stuff that we're pulling out of her body.
• 34:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unbelievable.
• 34:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, you're going to put yourself in my position.
• 34:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've got a $500,000 movie is about to start in two weeks with a crazy leading lady sitting in front of me and she's showing me all this stuff and I'm looking at, I'm going, why are you doing this thing?
• 34:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't know what to say, I said, they pulled this out of your body.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's like, yeah, look, look here and he's like, she's gonna bruise up here and I'm looking, you know, I ain't no voodoo experts, but I'm like, they can pull these fish hooks out of your body.
• 34:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's gonna be more than just bruises, okay?
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, I got bigger problems to deal with now, which is, I'm gonna get rid of you somehow because I can't, there's no way you're gonna work in my movie.
• 34:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is kind of stuff that you deal with.
• 34:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was dealing with back in the day, and it turns out, thank God, you know, we are far in a way to get out of the picture.
• 35:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But whether it's true, and I should really believe in this, you know, and then I had to last minute had to recast the thing, I mean, it was a great, I mean, the fact that you can get that movie done at all is, and it sounds like I'm patting myself in the back, but,
• 35:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I look back in those days.
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I can make movies under these conditions, I can make movies anywhere, you know.
• 35:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: But you know the scarier thing is why we're producers and directors fighting for this person to be, I don't even have to answer that, but I mean, that's how my brain goes very well.
• 35:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Usually there's only a couple of reasons and we all know what those reasons are.
• 35:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But,
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just a different terrain, and this became a big scandal, you know, this whole voodoo thing with this production and the process of Vietnam and all of that.
• 35:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But...
• 35:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you were to tell stories like this and Hollywood filmmaking circle, you know, people like think you're making it up, you know, and that's just one of the crazy things, but you know, the flip side is I also learned so much, you know, I really, you know, I think one of the things that I, that I somehow came to me, you know, was if I was succeed in this environment,
• 36:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: one of them.
• 36:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, because, you know, you're making films and and because you've accused, you know, everything costs more, you know, the cameraman charge you more, this guy sound guy charge you more, the performance costs you more.
• 36:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I said, you know what, this is what I'm going to do.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am going to go to work for one of the biggest production companies and do not.
• 36:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they asked me to come work with them and I'm like, if I work with them,
• 36:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be in the inside and I'm going to learn everything I'm going to learn what it costs them.
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's what cost them is very different what it costs me who the contacts are, who's the right people and and and that was my educational journey, you know, for I think was like a year and a half.
• 37:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I work with them and they were really generous in sharing a lot of these information and once I figure all that out, I started over my own company, started making films with the people that I showed, you know, chose to be around and at that time also the industry started to grow and there's less and less of that kind of thing that I had to deal with the first, you know, four or five years that I was in Vietnam.
• 37:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, but, but the, but that voodoo story to this day, I remember, I, you know, when she left, I'm sitting, I'm sitting here by myself.
• 37:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: It truly one of those classic movie moments, you know, where the character, the lead character, hit the end of the second act where you get hit rock bottom.
• 38:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was me, you know, I'm sitting here going.
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: what am I going to do now right what how what am I going to do this movies done and and if i tell my co-producers they think i'm crazy now as a matter of fact a week or two before that what am i producing partners were like dust and you know you two stress out and you you know i think you kind of losing it man
• 38:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I can imagine if I were to go to them and say, listen, we got to fire a leading lady because, you know, and this girl even said, oh, you've also, you got to go see my I think too because they got to put a voodoo on you because they want to ruin this whole production.
• 38:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you need some protection spells and I was like, no thanks.
• 38:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why he's pulling any fish hooks out of my body.
• 38:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, I can laugh about it now, but it just, again, you know, the things that I that I ran into, I'm like, and movies there, just a, just a, a priceless.
• 38:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: 20 years from now, you know, I sit in here at the Bauer's, 20 years from now.
• 39:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: What would you like to have seen in the next two decades that when we sit back down here, and we will, you sit back down here and we're like, going over the last 20 years, and we'd be like, damn.
• 39:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: We saw 40 years of this.
• 39:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I saw 40 years of, you know, the first time you are in Jump Street with Johnny Depp.
• 39:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then now, going 20 years into the future, we turn back and we look like, what would you like to see?
• 39:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it would be very nice if we would sit here 20 years from now and talk about them.
• 39:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: whether it's a television series or a feature film that being nominated, and possibly one the price that comes from a Vietnamese-American filmmaker or a Vietnamese-American actor, actors, writer, producer.
• 40:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that would that would do my heart good.
• 40:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: just to see that.
• 40:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm optimistic that it's coming.
• 40:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You listen, I mean, I don't want to be just presumptuous and call them a friend, I know, bow, you know, if you nominate an Emmy, right?
• 40:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really times.
• 40:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 40:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Things like that.
• 40:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 40:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: a good friend, you know, it's a while back, you know, again, this is how it works.
• 40:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: If sometimes you just go through a dry period, you know, a friend Tony Boy, right?
• 40:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: One, the three, I don't think they're just been a film since on dance.
• 40:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: One, all three, but twenty years from now, you know, I would like it not to be an only.
• 40:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that vision is pure, it's a pure vision, I think it's achievable.
• 41:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to think that because again, there's more room now, you know, there's more room now.
• 41:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're less so exoticized now than we were 20, 30 years ago, and so many young filmmakers, writers coming up that has their own voice.
• 41:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: and they're going to be more of them and more of them and the industry, I think that the way the industry is now, it allows content to be made in so many forms.
• 41:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you got to short form as you get the long form as you, you know, anybody can pick up a phone and go and make content.
• 41:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And because of that, that's what I truly believe that it's going to happen because it's going to be more content.
• 41:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like we talked about, we had to put the products out there and we got to build our voice.
• 41:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, in the young filmmakers and artists from our community,
• 42:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I encourage you to have the technical tools to work with without having to take a long amount back in a day.
• 42:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: You got my film and you get to go to the lab and all of this stuff cost money.
• 42:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So because of that, I'm truly optimistic that's going to be a lot more content to come out.
• 42:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And our voice will be heard.
• 42:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: a lot easier than it was 20 years ago.
• 42:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm optimistic to see what you put out the next decade.
• 42:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because you're still very young.
• 42:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that, you know, we're gonna see super fake next year, next spring, yeah, next spring.
• 42:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you've been on the podcast three times now and they're all just bangers.
• 42:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the next time we sit with you, we'll probably be right before or after super fake.
• 42:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm excited for people to see, you super fake.
• 42:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's also a very unique character for Lucy Lou as well.
• 43:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, she's such an icon as well, and in this show, it's a side of her that you don't see a lot.
• 43:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And again, the, you know, with the pedigree at the people behind it, the writing is so wonderful.
• 43:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm very excited for people to see it.
• 43:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited for tonight.
• 43:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait to decide it.
• 43:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm nervous, all those emotions, but I'm really happy to be here today.
• 43:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Every year, it becomes more and more special because we get to see the layers of the people that are building this industry tonight, we do have that wind coming.
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have you here with Tony Bowie that the three of you are in the same room.
• 43:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like that You know, it's like Sundance, right?
• 43:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like we were all out there and but here is like our home turf This is where ESA has really grown this community to it's gonna be just a wonderful evening and
• 43:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Apparently, it's so loud as well.
• 43:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
• 43:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And every year, it gets bigger and bigger, and such a wonderful time to be Vietnamese.
• 44:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dustin, thank you so much for coming out of my game.
• 44:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate you coming on.
• 44:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.
• 44:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wyn.
• 44:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wyn, Katherine Wyn, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
• 44:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok