Latest / South Asian Trailblazers / Hasan Minhaj, Lena Khan & Prashanth Venkataramanujam: Inside the Making of Netflix’s Best of the Best — Bringing Bollywood to Hollywood

Transcript

Hasan Minhaj, Lena Khan & Prashanth Venkataramanujam: Inside the Making of Netflix’s Best of the Best — Bringing Bollywood to Hollywood · South Asian Trailblazers

• 0:00
  Speaker: Why this film?
• 0:01
  Speaker: Why this team?
• 0:02
  Speaker: And why now?
• 0:03
  Speaker 4: We've been fighting for this movie for six years, and let's have our first American collegiate Bollywood dance competition that's backed by a major studio.
• 0:12
  Speaker 4: Scripts like this have been floating around for a long time, but it was that moment to say who's gonna put their shoulder in the steering wheel and do it.
• 0:20
  Speaker: When you have an all-brown cast, the actors and the cast just get to be people rather than representatives of the culture.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Every second South Asian project you see, you got like, oh, the side character who's the brown dude and how he brings smelly food to work.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Can't get a date.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, why is it so sad?
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: All the brown people actually just got to be like characters and have nuances and be people.
• 0:41
  Speaker: Do you all feel like South Asians can create stories about our community that are also commercially viable?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: We had people clapping out loud every single moment Arjun was on screen.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: And for a young brown dude to be a love interest, we have arrived.
• 0:57
  Speaker: What was the hardest part of making this film?
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: This movie is a multi-front war.
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: The South Asians are going to come with so much scrutiny.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: Collegiate Bollywood dance.
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: This isn't just a South Asian art form.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: It's an American art form now.
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: We're all from different parts of the diaspora.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: And we're taking all these different components that shaped who we are to create this new piece of art.
• 1:21
  Speaker: I'm Simi Shah and welcome to South Asian Trailblazers.
• 1:25
  Speaker: There's a new movie out on Netflix called Best of the Best.
• 1:29
  Speaker: It's a coming-of-age comedy set on the competitive Bollywood Fusion dance circuit.
• 1:34
  Speaker: And if you were on a South Asian dance team in college, like I was, you know exactly the world I'm talking about.
• 1:41
  Speaker: And so today, I'm sitting down with the three people who brought this film to life.
• 1:46
  Speaker: Actor and comedian Hasan Minhaj, who spent years as a correspondent on The Daily Show, broke out with his special Homecoming King, and went on to create Patriot Act.
• 1:57
  Speaker: He has since brought shows like The King's Jester, and most recently, Husan Hates Ronnie and Ronnie Hates Hasan with Ronnie Chang on tour.
• 2:04
  Speaker: And he also made this film alongside his longtime collaborator, Prashanth Venkataramanujam, who's the co-founder of 186K Films with Hasan, and his credits include Patriot Act, which the two of them created together, as well as Bill Nye Saves the World, and this year alone, Riz Ahmed series bait.
• 2:23
  Speaker: Joining them is director Lena Khan, whose credits include The Tiger Hunter, which she wrote and directed, Disney's Flora and Ulysses, and episodes of Never Have I Ever.
• 2:34
  Speaker: These are three very different resumes, but there's one through line through all of it.
• 2:39
  Speaker: They chose to come together and make this film.
• 2:42
  Speaker: And here's the story of how and why.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: Like, we realized like, how has this not been made yet?
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: That's the question that kind of kept coming up.
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: And the more and more we discussed it, it was just cracking us up.
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: You know, just the the the Sassa kids, the a cappella kids, the dance kids.
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: It was just like a whole world.
• 3:38
  Speaker: I was on a dance team, so I know.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and we were just like, there's so many characters.
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: And you know, after we got done with Patriot Act, it was we were in the depths of the pandemic, and we just wanted to do something that was joyful, but had a real story behind it.
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: We just didn't want to do something that was like frivolous, and oh, this is just a dance movie.
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: We wanted to make sure it was like a real, meaningful, it was saying something, you know, because it's pretty easy to just rest on the idea that like, oh, this is a dance movie, and people will come for the music and the dancing, but you know, they're not expected to have depth or nuance or trying to be saying anything about you know South Asian culture or life or you know, anything meaningful.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: And so once we kind of found the girls as our kind of central characters and we realized we wanted to make it about the dance team, everything just kind of fell into place from that point.
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: It also felt like the secret that I wanted to share and we wanted to share with the world.
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: Just how you said you were like I was part of it too.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: We all have this chapter in our lives where it's like we're on a dance team, we're ruining our GPAs, we're lying to our parents, we're falling in love, I got married from it.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: Like it's this chapter in our lives.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: There's these cassettes that play in our parents' cars, there's these songs that we grew up with, there are these movie references that we have that just get to be a part of us, and then we grow up, and then we work at KPMG and we don't talk about this anymore.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: But it's in all of us.
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: There's like video of all of us growing up here in the United States, dancing as children, singing these songs, and to share that with people.
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: It's a very real thing we have, and it's this joyous feeling that we have.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: And I felt what PV felt.
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: I was like, how has this not been made before?
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: And I wanted to take our kind of collective, let's call it showbiz political capital, and said, hey, let's put our shoulder in the steering wheel.
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: And we've been fighting for this movie for six years, let's put it in the studio system, and let's have our first American collegiate Bollywood dance competition that's backed by a major studio.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: Scripts like this have been floating around for a long time, but it's it was that moment to say who's gonna put their shoulder in the steering wheel and do it, and who's gonna direct this thing is Lena Khan.
• 5:53
  Speaker: I love it.
• 5:54
  Speaker: Lena, you said something very beautiful at the premiere, which is when you have an all-brown cast, the actors and the cast just get to be people rather than representatives of the culture.
• 6:05
  Speaker: Can you expand a little bit on what you meant by that and how that played out for you in directing this film?
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like every, you know, every second South Asian project you see, you got like, oh, the side character who's the brown dude.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: And every story that relates to him is about his brownness and how he brings smelly food to work or whatever it is, and how he can't get a date.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, why is this so sad?
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Like, I was like, you can be a mom, you can be a daughter, you could be a best friend, and if everybody's brown, you can actually be those things and not like I am the token brown person.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: We had a token white person, and so all the brown people actually just got to be like characters and have nuances and be people.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: I I have to add to that, and this is uh something Maitreyi told me when we were working on the film of how rare it is to have this many South Asians um in a cast that are not related.
• 6:56
  unknown: Wow.
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: And so that has been burned in my brain ever since she told me that.
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: I was like, wow, yeah.
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: This is not based on a family unit.
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: Like that's another to your point.
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: Like, that's where Nirbe gets to be Nirbe.
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: And, you know, uh even the token white guy, like they're they're f white frat guys.
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: We're not even they're not even getting pigeonholed.
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: And like, you know, Sumi gets to be the the the strange psycho one.
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: You know, like it's like, but they're not all like, oh, they all have to go home to, you know, a fan one household and they have to relate to each other as brothers.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: You gotta meet sister.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: You have to meet cousin Nikhil.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: It's always in relation to that, yeah.
• 7:35
  Speaker: I I find that super interesting also because in the film you play Professor Hamza Latif, who's guiding the students and sort of this mentor figure.
• 7:44
  Speaker: You're the faculty sponsor of Sasa.
• 7:46
  Speaker: But I also feel like that very much parallels to real life and the role you all are playing in shepherding the next generation.
• 7:52
  Speaker: Do you feel that parallel?
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: Was this a nice way of saying I'm an unk?
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: Very much so.
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: It was generously.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: That was a really that was a really kind way to say that.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: Yes, I'm an unk, I'm washed, I have a little bit.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: Um, and I and I carry that proudly, truly.
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: But what was the question against that?
• 8:07
  Speaker: No, I mean, did you feel that parallel when you were writing the script?
• 8:10
  Speaker: Was that intentional of like carrying and feeling that responsibility of shepherding this next generation, especially with such a breakout cast of South Asian actors?
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: When you wrote the script, did you know you would not be the leaderist?
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, and I and you know what, like life is fully about embracing who you are and where you are.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: I I I think that there is something really incredible in this young cast.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: My Trey Ramakrishna and Priyanka Kedia, in the entire ensemble, what I see these diaspora kids represent is what I think is a reclaiming of what our identity can be.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: Look, for a lot of us in this country, we are I call us post-partition diaspora kids.
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: And that's both for kids in the UK and here in the States.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: But collegiate Bollywood Dance was the one place where I haven't seen this type of art made anywhere else in the world where despite sectarian language or religious barriers, we're taking things that shaped us.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: What am I talking about?
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: Baranathia Mandak.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: I'm talking about Kuttu, Bangra, and then Hindi film, which is a combination of all of those, plus hip-hop, jazz, and contemporary to make something new.
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: And that was about youth.
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: The youth are making something new and they're planting their flag.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: And if we think about collegiate Bollywood dance, I'm like, oh, this isn't just a South Asian art form.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: It's only possible here.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: It's an American art form now.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: These kids from Maitreyi's Tamil Sri Lankan, he's Tamil, I'm, you know, North Indian.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: We're all from different parts of the diaspora, and we're taking all these different components that shaped who we are to create this new piece of art.
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: But if you look at their fashion, their style, their sensibility, that's youth culture.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: And so it had to be about them.
• 10:02
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 10:02
  Speaker: Do you all feel like this is the moment where South Asians can create stories about our community that are also commercially viable?
• 10:11
  Speaker: I mean, I know we've been trying for years, but I still feel like there's this implicit fear of will this succeed?
• 10:17
  Speaker: Will the mainstream ride this wave with us?
• 10:20
  Speaker: How do you guys feel with respect to that?
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: What I will say is we had people clapping out loud every single moment Arjun was on screen.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: For a young brown dude to be a love interest, we have arrived.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I've always been like, when are we gonna be not be the nerdy side character?
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: We're gonna be the main man.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: And when Arjun hated, I was like, wait, we've arrived.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It's good.
• 10:41
  Speaker: Yeah, I love that.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: Delve Patel walked, so Arjun could roll.
• 10:45
  Speaker: So good.
• 10:46
  Speaker: I you you talked about how some of your inspiration in directing were films like into the spider-verse because they had this like editorial and beautiful, heartfelt feel, but also were subversive.
• 10:57
  Speaker: What did you mean by that?
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: My main thing here is I was like, I don't want us to just recreate every other team comedy and put brown people.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I was like, I want something like let we have our differences and we have our similarities and let's be proud of them.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: And so I love those comps because they they don't rest on tropes.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: They try to be playful and they try to figure out ways to just be elevated.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to do something that we could really be proud of.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: That people would be like, we look badass, our music is out of out of this world, and the the artistic flair is there.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And all the folks who went into making it, like, I think we hit it.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I was like, if folks can be proud of it, and I think that's what I meant by into the spider story.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: It's cool.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: Like we can be cool.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: But Lena, you did two things that you you just can't you can't teach.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: These are choices that as an artist that you make.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: Lena did this.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: You can't teach taste.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: I mean, the cinematography, the movie you directed, the music, she has a musician's background.
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's taste.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: Like we've all had the friend with a bad Spotify player that's embarrassing.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: And you don't let them get on on this.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: Do not let them into the avid.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: But that, you know, score and music, especially in a Bollywood collegiate dance film that's so music heavy, it's all about your taste.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: And then the second is about this is a smart movie.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: Like the jokes that you kept in this movie, there are a ton of tired college frat movie tropes.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: And you punched, you made this film punch above its weight in ways that it totally showcased, I think, your brilliance and your intelligence, and to have it be at that top shelf.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: There's this there is the stupid college movie that can be made that doesn't age well.
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: But I think what we felt in that theater was that we were she was directing a film that was playing to our highest level of intelligence and our highest level of aspiration, I think.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: The other thing I would love to add to everything Huston's saying about Lena is, you know, most times when you get a director's cut, you know, when you know we finish shooting the film and then Lena goes off and works with the editor for, you know, a couple months to to assemble the movie the way she was.
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: She's ruthless in the edit.
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: She's like most directors will be like, oh, it's coming in 30 minutes over because like I can't lose that.
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: And she's like, people don't care about that.
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: So I cut it.
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: And she and she just kept the movie, she she made sure it had this pace to it that that, and she was like, it was only like what was necessary, what moved her, what she felt compelled by.
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: And she just has a ruthless bar that every minute of the movie needs to clear, otherwise, it's on the cutting room floor.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: And we we've never experienced that before.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: It was like beautiful to see.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: Yes, he's basically saying true intuition and instinct, whereas me and him will kind of meander.
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: High doubt.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: We're shooting constantly.
• 13:49
  Speaker: I want to come back to that, but but I want to double-click on this because I I felt that, and I think you could feel it even in the theater with how often people were reacting because there was something every second, and you could feel that.
• 14:00
  Speaker: What I also found interesting is there are a lot of Easter eggs and inside baseball, right?
• 14:04
  Speaker: That only if you're South Asian can you understand.
• 14:07
  Speaker: And how did you strike the balance of like, I want this to speak to the community, but I also want this to be palatable to a mainstream audience who has no idea what the DC Dance circuit is.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I think in specificity this is accessibility.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: So when you actually make everything just kind of milk toast to try to appease everybody, you've lost them.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: You're no longer connecting.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: These people got to be themselves.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: We have the jokes that only like South Asian dance kids are gonna get, the ones only South Asians, but that's because everything's real to our characters.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: You don't always have to get every single thing.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they're cursing in in Hindi, and that's fine.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: You get it, you know, you can go along with it.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And I think that way you can you can be with the characters.
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: You know what got a laugh last night that never has gotten a laugh in a screening, but is speaking exactly to your point, when um this isn't ruining anything, don't worry.
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: Um, when they first, the girls first discover that there's a Bollywood dance team, and then um Priyanka's character Anjali goes, don't worry, it'll just be an hour leave.
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: The whole theater started cracking up, and they're like, We know.
• 15:09
  Speaker: No, I I really felt that because I remember going out and auditioning for a team, and you know, I had grew up with cousins that actually competed in best of the best.
• 15:17
  Speaker: And so it was like a generational thing.
• 15:20
  Speaker: You go to college, you sign up for a team, and so it felt so like this is gonna be 12 hours a week, your GPA is gonna be horrible.
• 15:26
  Speaker: So I I really love that element.
• 15:28
  Speaker: I want to come back to you two as long-term collaborators.
• 15:31
  Speaker: What is the genesis of your partnership, and how did this project feel different from all the other projects you've worked on between Patriot Act and your shows, et cetera?
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: I I gotta take this one first because he won't, he won't ever admit this.
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: But so much credit for our partnership rests on Hussein's shoulders.
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: He, more than we we both come from stand-up backgrounds.
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: I came up doing stand-up, we met on the stand-up circuit, but he, more than any other stand-up or comedian I've ever met with, wants to collaborate.
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: He's always been such a collaborator.
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: He wants to make something bigger than the some of its parts, right?
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: Like he's always looking for opportunities to level up with people.
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: And so, you know, or early on in our 20s, like he came to me, was just like, you know, do you want to be writing partners on like long-term things, pilots, scripts, these kinds of things?
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: And we would, he would come to my apartment and we would just talk about stuff, and then he we'd go off and do stand-up, but we always had this like I don't know, it was like an affair.
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: Like we we'd see each other out on stand-up stuff, but then we'd both meet during the daytime hours to talk about like scripts and stuff.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: It was an affair.
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: And he's kind of always brought that energy to everything.
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: He's always wanting to, you know, even with the Ronnie Hasan show, like wanting to be like most stand-ups don't do stuff like that.
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: And so that has been a very unique marriage, I think creative partnership that we have now been in for like 15 years.
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: I think I was lonely.
• 17:02
  Speaker: Did you meet pre-marriage?
• 17:02
  Speaker: Like, how did you guys meet?
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: Did we meet premaries?
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: Doing stand-up?
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: That's this is that's a very intimate question.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: Did we meet pre-marriage?
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: Well, let's call it a fairness.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: We were we met we met doing stand-up.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: We were both, we were both, you know, kids that were doing stand-up that were trying to make it through the gauntlet of stand-up without being on pills poppers and percocet.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: And we somehow felt we had this sympatico relationship where we really have productive tension with one another.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: But it, you know, like going through all of this is only worth doing when you have great collaborators.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: It that that's really what this whole thing's about, as trite and as corny as it sounds.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: And I know that's a non-day thing to say that it's not about the destination or the result, it's really about who you do it with.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: This has been one of the greatest joys of my life.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: And working now with Lena, I can't wait to do more with her.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: Like it's truly been a joy.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: She's leveled me up.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:54
  Speaker: I love that.
• 17:55
  Speaker: You both in the work that you've done, and all three of you gen genuinely have been stewards of the culture in such special ways.
• 18:03
  Speaker: And I really felt this not just through the story and just the homage to so many different elements of our culture, but even just like the nod to Kalka the Chico and seeing that in the film and just seeing how our community is appearing on the main stage in so many different ways.
• 18:17
  Speaker: How do you think about continuing to steward that and where we are as a community today versus when you guys started and where we're headed next?
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I was most excited.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Part of the reason I was excited about this movie was, well, I told Maitreyi, because she came on board first.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: I was like, You're already a star.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I would love to take some part in making you a movie star.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Because I think the world is better if you are in the cinema landscape.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: And so and that's the case with all of our cast.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: And I think I was like, if my contribution is just to have them all sort of in the Pantheon of movie stars now, it's they're going to be making their own work, and that's where we're gonna get to our next stage.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: Uh this this type of affirmation is what I I just I was seeking my whole life.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Like Lena was breathing this into everybody.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: She's in the scene with people.
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: We don't even have a director's cut.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: And you would be like, this is your movie star moment.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: This is gonna make you a movie star.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: And that type of like foresight.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: Foresight, I'm seeing this in you, and I'm pulling this out of you, and you're gonna meet this moment, you're gonna exceed this moment.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: It was really um beautiful.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: And and that you totally have the vision.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: You you got it.
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: I also think, you know, we we all all of us get the the representation question of like, you know, stewards of the culture.
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: And I I I actually personally think for other folks that want to be writers, directors, performers, like if you're South Asian or you come from, you know, a minority background in this country, like I kind of think it's best not to think too much about that, actually.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: I think it's important to find stories and things within you that you find interesting first.
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: That's what Patriot Act came out of.
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: Like, you know, we obviously do a lot of stuff that's South Asian-oriented, but 95% of the episodes of Patriot Act had nothing to do with being South Asian.
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: It was about student loans or drug pricing.
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: And and yeah, obviously we did stuff that that related to the culture.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: But even this movie, as forward representation as it is, we all were very rigorous about making sure the story felt new.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: And, you know, there are a lot of movies, we spent a lot of time talking about this.
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: There's movies where there's, you know, fish out of water, freshman year, so someone solo going to college.
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: There's end of senior year, last hurrah movies.
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: But our experiences, all of us went to college with some of our best friends, and we all were just like, How has that movie not been made?
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: So irrespective of being salvation.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: It's actually new.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: This movie has not existed.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: So chasing that idea, chase bold, new, audacious things.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: Shout out to Dev Patel.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: We we got a chance to see early cuts of Monkey Man.
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: But I give him so much credit for him just fully leaning in and taking risks.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: That's really what Monkey Man was.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: The extra photography that he was doing in Thailand, I had to do this to fix this.
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: What I was inspired most by was him not only as a writer, as a director, but as a risk taker.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: And I think that's the whole, that's the whole name of the game.
• 21:25
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 21:25
  Speaker: I I think I also felt that even in just the departure from, and I think you said this when you were talking about the film of like it was two women fighting about something other than a man.
• 21:34
  Speaker: Like it passes the Bechtel test.
• 21:35
  Speaker: In some ways, it felt like this Bollywood version of Frozen, where like the two girls come together at the end.
• 21:41
  Speaker: And I'm curious, like, what was the intention in writing that and how did it feel directing a story of that sort?
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: They were always saying we want to make a movie about sisterhood, and I'm like, I have lived sisterhood.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: I am, you know, female friendship is so insanely important, but we don't have enough movies about it.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: And there's so many interesting things, there's the passive aggressive, there's codependent.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: See, there's what's more interesting is how you get past a fight or avoid it instead of the fight.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And I was like, for us to actually sink your teeth into that, is goes back to what you were saying.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: It's like it has nothing to do with being brown, it's just we all go through those sorts.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: And so my favorite part was like the accessibility of all these things that like we all understand what will make you swoon.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: We all understand what will make you like love your best friend.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: And then I guess I don't know, the brown part seems secondary.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: And so I was just really excited because the script they gave me was already so rich that it felt like you could go so many layers with everything, whether it's the friendship, whether it's the relationships, whether it's like what the two girls are struggling with.
• 22:37
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:38
  Speaker: What was the hardest part of making this film?
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: The hardest part of making this film is taking a movie and having it go through the gauntlet of showbiz, taking it through the studio system, pushing that rock up the hill.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: You take the germination of an idea, you have to have that idea be compelling within two to three sentences.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: You have people have to be the Leonardo DiCaprio meme of like, I want to see that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: I want to I want it to be that.
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: Then you have to have the brilliant competence of Prashanth who can write a complete script that is sound in structure in every turn.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: Then you have to have a visionary like Lena who's gonna direct this thing because uh movies are cinematic, they're visual stories.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: And then you have to have an amazing cast that infuses it with life that makes it feel like it jumps through the screen.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: And then finally, Lena had to work on this thing in post to make it this beautiful, cohesive, not only visual piece, but sonic piece.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: Those steps, so many great ideas and great scripts, they just they stumble along that marathon.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Um, and so this is just a testament to the grit and determination of these people here.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: Like it's it's it was it's a miracle.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Everybody push this mount this movie up a hill.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: The big thing I'd put it is you have to try to make a movie that Maitreyi, Priyanka, the rest of the cast deserve, but without Netflix or whoever it is that's yet knowing what it was.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: I think we knew what it was before anybody was.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: We had dreams for it and aspirations.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: We're like, we know the the scope of the movie, but nobody, nobody it would make sense, would give the budget that we needed it to look like.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: So everybody had to fight blood, sweat, and tears, to make it look like the scope of a movie that made sense for them.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: To have the lasers and the drones and the giant dance sequences.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Like Bollywood shoots a dance sequence in five days, and we would have one day, but we had to make it look like five days.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: And so that was kind of the challenge, and and we're excited the dancers were amazing.
• 24:39
  Speaker: Yeah, and you alluded to that yesterday when you said, you know, made the budget feel like it was double what it was, which I thought was very good.
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: That's also another thing that that Lena was shouldering throughout production, which is specifically on this movie.
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: So now we can get a little bit to the representation where the you know, making this movie is a multi-front war.
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: That's what I realized.
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: Because it's you you can have great actors, you can have a great script, but if you get the sound mix wrong and the choreography is right, people will harp on the sound mix.
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: Because they're like because that's a huge part of the dancing, or you can have the acting right, the story right, the sound mix right, and the choreography is a little eh.
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: Everything we knew, Lena knew going into this, every aspect of this movie, if one thing fails, the whole movie fails.
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: And so it was on her to make sure to be the standard bearer for all of these departments to go, you need to bring a 10 out of 10 because the South Asians are going to come with so much scrutiny to making sure this is like top shelf, you know?
• 25:41
  Speaker: Yeah, I remember hearing this a couple years ago when Never Have I Ever First Came Out.
• 25:46
  Speaker: And I think it was Mindy who said, I know South Asian women will be my worst critics because they're looking for themselves in all the characters and in this story, which I think adds an immense level of pressure.
• 25:56
  Speaker: And you guys did a phenomenal job.
• 25:57
  Speaker: I think people are gonna walk away from best of the best feeling very seen.
• 26:01
  Speaker: And for me, it was very evocative and just drummed up a lot of nostalgia.
• 26:04
  Speaker: And I called my sister and said, You need to look for your best of the best shirt because that's gonna be like a relic.
• 26:10
  Speaker: It's this bright orange shirt.
• 26:12
  Speaker: It's it says B-O-B on it, which makes it look like Bob.
• 26:15
  Speaker: But um The founders were at the uh yeah, I saw them, and uh, we we had my sister and I were 10 years apart, but even we had this moment, she's like, I'm really excited to watch this too, which I think is just such a testament that's what did it feel like for you as someone so you have an older sister that's a part of it, you are a part of it.
• 26:32
  Speaker: I think to the point you all have made, it feels so obvious now that this movie exists, but it's so crazy that it didn't exist before, in that I grew up in Atlanta.
• 26:43
  Speaker: I every single one of my male and female cousins was on a dance team in college.
• 26:48
  Speaker: It was like, I got to Harvard and it was like they were like, What team are you joining?
• 26:52
  Speaker: And then they didn't have a Ross team, so I went and tried out a BU and they didn't let me on, so then I went joined the bunger team.
• 26:58
  Speaker: And I I mean I was texting my dance team friends when I watched the screener, and I was like, you guys would have to watch this, and I think that's so powerful to evoke something that was so central to our lives, but also feels really unique to us as a community.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I I I think there's just um this feels obvious, but I think it's a really empowering thing for our community and for all of us that come from the diaspora.
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: I really felt this.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: We have something to offer.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: What I mean by that is when you look about cinema and you think about French cinema, Japanese cinema, Korean cinema, kung fu films, someone like the Rizer of the Wu-Tang clan will quote, enter the dragon because of what Kung Fu in Jeet Kundo and what Bruce Lee offered to cinema.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: We've had decades of history in the musical genre.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: So when people go, hey, what what what do you have to offer here?
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: It's like, oh, you think singing in the rain is a musical, you think Chicago is a music, oh, we do musicals.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: So we have something inherently that is so special and unique and singular to us to offer to people that just brings so much joy to pe billions of people in that part of the world, but billions of people around the world.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: And so I think us owning that, that's like, hey, this is something very real that is ours, that we've created, that we all get to participate in.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: And it is something unique that only we could do.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: And I think it's a beautiful thing to say, this is ours, and we have something to offer and bring here.
• 28:30
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 28:31
  Speaker: What do you guys think is the next obvious thing?
• 28:33
  Speaker: What's the dream state next for 186k?
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: Is this a Harvard thing of like what stock we have to make right now?
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: Is it a buy and do it?
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: Don't think we didn't pick up on it.
• 28:42
  Speaker: I had to read the jail college.
• 28:43
  Speaker: Let's go, jail college.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm talking about.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: That's the greatest gift of all.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Financial freedom is the greatest gift of all.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: Compounding interest.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: Don't sleep on compounding interest.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Don't sleep on it.
• 28:55
  Speaker: Um, I just want to end with a quick rapid fire.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 28:58
  Speaker: Okay.
• 28:58
  Speaker: Uh Wait, wait, wait, hang on.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, who's next?
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Lena Khan is next.
• 29:03
  Speaker: Next, ladies and gentlemen.
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: We are we are the thing we're most excited about is her next film, whatever it is.
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: I cannot wait to see Lena Khan.
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: And we're gonna, whatever she asks of us, we are we are gonna help.
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: We'll be PAs on our next Monday if she needs us.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: I know her everything.
• 29:17
  Speaker: I'm personally very, very excited for what's next for you as well.
• 29:20
  Speaker: Okay, rapid fire.
• 29:21
  Speaker: Favorite scene from the movie Diamond High's finale dance.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Argent entering the date auction.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Auditions.
• 29:29
  Speaker: Go to Taco Bell order.
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: Three hard shell tacos, two soft shell, one steak quesadilla, and a Mexican pizza.
• 29:36
  Speaker: That's your Instagram bio, so I knew you were gonna say that.
• 29:38
  Speaker: Okay.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: I mean, you asked for the honest truth, but keep it out there.
• 29:41
  Speaker: Cheese quesadilla.
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: Um, me and my daughter get this.
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: Cinnamon twists.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: I get cinnamon twists.
• 29:48
  Speaker: Uh, one thing you hope people take away from this movie uh is that dignity and self-respect.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Brown joy.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: Beauty.
• 29:58
  unknown: Yes.
• 29:59
  Speaker: And what you hope your Lexi as a trailblazer to be in one sentence or a word?
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: Oh my god.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: That's not a rapid fire question.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, impossible to answer.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: I just don't want to be in trouble anymore.
• 30:13
  Speaker: I think it's safe to say you're not in trouble.
• 30:15
  Speaker: Um, thank you all so much for for doing this, for making this incredible film, and for welcoming South Asian Trailblazers to have this conversation.
• 30:23
  Speaker: So excited.
• 30:24
  Speaker: Thank you for these great questions.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: This was so fun.
• 30:27
  Speaker: Thank you so much for tuning in today.
• 30:29
  Speaker: I hope you'll join our community at SouthAsianTrailblazers.com.
• 30:33
  Speaker: Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us at South Asian Trailblazers on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and any major platform.
• 30:42
  Speaker: Here at South Asian Trailblazers, we're dedicated to elevating leading South Asians.
• 30:49
  Speaker: Until next time.