S1:E5 Clifton Collins Jr. and the jockey

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a really good one and I’ve been so excited to share it with you. My next guest is an actor I consider one of the greatest of our generation. He’s worked with everyone from Del Toro to Malick, Tarantino to Soderbergh. He’s an extraordinary actor who loses himself in the life of his film and television characters. Ever evolving, he’s a true chameleon and shapeshifter, presenting us with a new and intriguing character. This is Clifton Collins. Jr.

Clifton Collins Jr. has acting in his blood. His grandfather, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, became an American icon, starring alongside John Wayne and Mel Blanc throughout his career. Clifton burst onto the scene in 1997, but it was his portrayal of Frankie Flowers in Traffic that forever cemented his status as an actor to be taken seriously. Since then he’s stolen the screen in films like Capote and Sunshine Cleaning.

Clifton’s latest film Jockey is yet another work of art, with his titular performance earning him the Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Acting.

JOCKEY
Directed by: Clint Bentley
Written by: Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar
Produced by: Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar, Nancy Schafer
Co-Producer: Linda Halbert
Executive Producers: Larry Kalas, Larry Kelly, Linda & Jon Halbert, Cheryl & Walt Penn, Genevieve & Mark Crozier, Cindy & John Greenwood, Ann Grimes & Jay Old, Benjamin Fuqua & Jordy Wax, Clifton Collins Jr.
Line Producer: Kelly Bryant
Associate Producer: Stacey Davis
Director of Photography: Adolpho Veloso
Production Designer: Gui Marini
Editor: Parker Laramie
Music by: Bryce Dessner & Aaron Dessner

The Smith Society Podcast: This is the Smith Society, a podcast about storytellers and storytelling. In this episode we feature the award-winning Clifton Collins Jr..

Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesmithsocietypod/

Host: Duane Fernandez

Email and ask a question or share a thought: info@voksee.com

The Smith Society theme song by: Steady Cadence

Steady Cadence is a brilliant father daughter duo out of North Carolina. There is an episode later this season about the theme song, their unique sound which blends together analog and digital, their inspiration, creative approach and how Cadence, who is currently in middle school, has so much soul.

The Smith Society logo: Designer, Chris Scott

Edited by: Marshall Baker

Follow your dreams, no matter where they take you.

S1:E4 Alice Gu and the Donut King

In this episode of The Smith Society we have the incredible opportunity to chat with the extraordinary director (and dear friend), Alice Gu and learn more about The Donut King.

Alice Gu is an award-winning director and Director of Photography. A Los Angeles native, Alice began her career as a director of photography, working with world-renowned directors like Werner Herzog and Stacy Peralta.

In 2017, Alice garnered attention for her work behind the lens of “Take Every Wave: the Life of Laird Hamilton,” a documentary directed by the Academy Award nominated Rory Kennedy. 

“The Donut King” is Alice’s feature directorial debut and was slated to premiere at the 2020 SXSW film festival. Despite the festival’s cancellation, the film won the Special Jury Prize for Excellence in Documentary Storytelling, and went on to win the One in a Million Award at the 2020 Sun Valley Film Festival.

Alice Gu: I want to say Dazed and Confused, but I think Forrest Gump had more impact on me.

Duane Fernandez: Interesting. How so?

Alice Gu: I remember it more clearly now. I remember the emotions more clearly, whereas Dazed and Confused, I was like, "Yeah, I remember that movie." And it was really cool and it was the cool movie at the time, but there isn't really an emotion attached to it, the way that there was with Forrest Gump.

Duane Fernandez: Hey there friends. Let me tell you about Alice. Alice Gu is an award-winning director in DP. She began her career as a director of photography, working with world renowned directors like Warner Hertzog, Stacey Peralta, Rory Kennedy, no big deal. Just Hertzog, Peralta, and Kennedy, and that's just to name a few. I'm also very fortunate to call Alice a friend of mine, a dear friend, and a long time collaborator. I've had the opportunity to work with her on some amazing projects, and I've been lucky enough to see firsthand at what makes her an incredible filmmaker. I think it's three key parts. One, Alice's extensive background in cinematography. She can already see the shot in her head and she can communicate that to everyone around her. I think this is such a powerful skill for a director. Two, she has exceptional taste. Just that. She has unbelievable taste. Three, she's kind.

She works effectively and efficiently with her team to achieve great results. Throughout the podcast we're going to talk about The Donut King, which is Alice's feature directorial debut and was slated to premier at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, which was canceled due to COVID. Despite the cancellation, the film still won the special jury prize for excellence in documentary storytelling. It also won the one in a million award at the 2020 Sun Valley Film Festival. The Donut King is about the rise and fall of a Cambodian refugee turned donut tycoon. Ted's story is one of fate, love, survival, hard knocks and redemption. It's the rags to richest story of a refugee escaping Cambodia arriving in America in 1975 and building an unlikely multi-billion dollar empire baking America's favorite pastry, the donut. Ted sponsored hundreds of visas for incoming refugees and helped them get on their feet teaching the ways of the donut business. The Donut King is executive produced by academy award winners, Ridley Scott and Freida Lee Mock.

It's a brilliant documentary and I highly recommend you all check it out, but before you do, let's learn a little bit more about Alice and this film. There's something I wanted to talk about. I was like, I think we've discussed this, but I've never really gotten dug deep on it, but how did you get into filmmaking? More like, when was the idea in your mind that you're like, I want to pursue this? How old were you and what were... What happened?

Alice Gu: Probably college like 17, 18, 19, early on in college. I decided I wanted to work in movies simply because I wanted to work in movies. I actually didn't really know what I wanted to do in movies. I thought it was production design, but I thought it would be a very fun and interesting place to work. And so, I graduated school with the intention of being a production designer, because you're very visual and I'm pretty visual, still visual, so that seemed like the natural thing to do.

Duane Fernandez: That's crazy, I had no idea. Is it something that you're still very passionate about when you're composing a scene or an interview? Are you constantly thinking just so much about all the things, but putting special care into the design of the set?

Alice Gu: I am. I have to say it really irks me if there's not enough budget to do it properly.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah. I think it's one of those things that's... When you look at budgets on projects or... In development oftentimes, that's the one thing they're not necessarily focused on. No,

Alice Gu: No, they always want to [inaudible] out on our department and I think that's not fair. And I think it's shortsighted because you can have, oh God, you can have all the A-list actors you want, you can hire the best DP. The best DP can only do his job as well as the place looks good, [inaudible]. And as you know, I went from, well, wanting to be a production designer and going into being a DP and a production designer is my best friend as a DP.

Duane Fernandez: Talk us through from production design to where you are now. What were the big career steps that took place and then I'll dig in deeper why those decisions were made. But how did you get to where you are now? What came next after production design?

Alice Gu: So I worked for production design and... I mean, that was trying to be like... This was in the very, very Genesis of it all. So I was trying to be an art PA or the unpaid art intern, so I was still working very much as a PA and I'm not sure if I ever told you this story, because it's really embarrassing and now it's a total big no-no, now that I know better, but ignorance is bliss, right? So it was one of my first jobs as a PA, I'd done a couple of good production design, like art PA jobs. But I was back on as a regular PA and the crew had broken for lunch in a commercial. We were shooting at Universal. It was my first time on the Universal lot, working there. Everything was like bigger than life, and I did the biggest no-no. Again, this is embarrassing to share because it's such a [inaudible] but I, as a PA, I was like, "Oh look, look at that Dolly sitting there with that big Panavision camera on there. I wonder what it feels like to look through that eye piece."

And oh my God, I climbed onto the Dolly. I mean, I knew it was [inaudible], I did it when no one was looking clearly and I did it really fast because I kind of knew that it was wrong, but I was like, "Oh, if I just take a quick peek." And I took a quick peek through that eye piece and... What I studied my degree is actually in photography. And I looked through that eye piece and it sounds super cheesy, but I remember clear as day, it felt like a mother's hug.

Duane Fernandez: Hmm. That's interesting.

Alice Gu: It was this sense of everything making sense in the world and everything coming together and it was instantaneous. It was this, oh my God. I'm like, "I've been going at this all wrong." I thought I wanted to go into art direction and production design, but no, this, nothing has ever felt more right than looking through this eye piece and seeing this composition. And it was right then and there that I decided to go into camera and really pivot right then and there. And then I started asking to go into camera PA, unpaid camera intern, however I could get a leg up. It's kind of actually a really long story, so I think I'll spare you that, but I'll tell you another day of how I got into camera department, but when the stars align and the synchronicities are real, that happened in a way that's truly magical. And I made my way to being a camera assistant and learning from the greats. I had the privilege of assisting for some of the best in the business Harris [Savita's] Rest In Peace.

Duane Fernandez: Wow.

Alice Gu: Sal Totino, Claudia Miranda, Dariusz Wolski. I mean, I really worked for the best of the best and learned from every single one of them had a lot of fun doing it. And from assisting Jump Your Way into, oh gosh, you start DPing and you work from like, I mean, I just named dropped some of the best DPs in the business. And from there I'm like, "Oh, okay, I'm going to make the jump to being DP." And then you go from making pretty good money as an assistant to being like, "Oh, I'll be your unpaid DP, what do you have for me?" Next thing I know I'm shooting this horrible vampire short and...

I don't know, you climb your way up from bad project and slowly they get better and better and better. But it's all part of the process because I wasn't good enough to shoot anything besides a bad vampire movie at the time, even though I wanted to be, I thought, I was like, "Oh, I'm ready to shoot. I'm ready to shoot a Moulin Rouge deal. But no, I wasn't good enough to shoot anything, but a bad vampire movie. Everything happens in its time.

Duane Fernandez: I agree. And I feel what's so interesting about production is that every project you learn so much, you just learn so much about creative and you learn a lot about business and you learn a lot about collaboration and partnerships and it just... We always laugh that whenever you go through a big life event, you get like the video game Sims. You get these little points above your head like your life, you start filling up on these different attributes. And so whenever we have this crazy project or something that you... To your point, the bad vampire movie, you still learn so much on those things that allow you to get to the next thing. And there is no fast track. And there are, I think there's some people that kind of just everything lines up perfectly, and it looks like a fast track.

And then you start digging in and there, there wasn't, they had been doing all sorts of little things in between that no one else knew about, it just seemed like that person hit the fast track and was able to be the unicorn in the industry, whatever industry it is, whether it's fashion, tech or filmmaking. People think that they just magically got the Moulin Rouge project, got the big Disney project. And then you start looking and you realize like, "Oh, they spent 10, 15 years getting here. I just wasn't aware of the things that they were working on." So that's cool, I love that. And I can't imagine the things that you learned working with such great names.

Alice Gu: Well, check this out. Here's another big name drop, but it's really cool. So [inaudible] for that bad vampire movie, because I didn't know what I was doing at all. I didn't have any crew. I had just a few friends. I had a friend who was a DP. I mean just out of USC Film School, and he is like, "I'll [inaudible] it for you." I was like, "You will?" He's like, "Sure." He's like, "I'll help you." That friend who [inaudible] my very first thing I ever shot, shot Star Wars. He shot the Rian Johnson. Which one is the Rian Johnson one, The Last Jedi?

Duane Fernandez: Is it The Last Jedi?

Alice Gu: No. It's the one before the last one.

Duane Fernandez: I don't recall. I'm bad with the Star Wars universe.

Alice Gu: Episode eight.

Duane Fernandez: Okay.

Alice Gu: Episode eight. Shot Knives Out, shot The Brothers Bloom shot... I mean, that is a friend who had that kind of talent and he is like, "I'll help you, and I know there's no money." He actually handmade lights for me because we couldn't afford anything, it was a bad vampire movie. So he built chicken coop. He built my lights for that bad vampire movie.

Duane Fernandez: That's amazing. And that's one of the things that's so interesting about... One of the things I get asked a lot from just a variety of our interns, people looking for jobs, pages when I worked for NBC Universal, at Focus Features, you would always get these questions like, how do I get to the next thing? And it just like, just start making stuff and collaborate with as many people as you can, whether it's a short, whatever you're doing, because there's these little synergies, things that happen on a set, whether it's a bad vampire movie or a commercial, you just meet people.

I remember, I met you working on a project at Focus Features and I wasn't even managing the production, I had stopped by and you guys were shooting at Coyote in West Hollywood and I was like, "Oh, I just want to check in and see how everything's going." And I swung in and I was literally up in the lofts shooting emails off on my laptop. And I remember looking down and the way you're working with your team, your assistants and the PAs and with the talent and with our producer, I was like, "This person's extraordinary." I noticed, I remember that...

Alice Gu:

No, wait, I remember that day too. I think about that day all the time, I was shooting a scary guy.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah, yeah.

Alice Gu: That was going to have blood smearing down that thing. I think about it. If I can talk about this, I'm like, "Why did Duane talk to me that day?" And remember we exchanged info, I got your card and I'm so glad you did. And there are no accidents and there are no coincidences in this world. And I'm so grateful at the risk of sounding totally [inaudible] but I mean, it is. I really believe that. And I'm super grateful that you're one of my dear favorite friends and it was that one day at Coyote shooting this dreadful looking horror guy, like a promo. And anyway, thank you. Thank you for that.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah. I mean, it was just, I could just see it. I mean, spotting talent to me is the details. I remember you making lighting adjustments, camera adjustments, making recommendations for talent. Yeah, you're right. We were shooting a bunch of promotional stuff for this film. And I could see that you were clearly an incredible creative person who was doing more than shooting promotional stuff. You're looking at it as a little short. You're looking at it just totally differently. But really what I admired was your ability and your collaboration with all your partners who are down on the floor. And I'm like, this is amazing and it's rare. I mean, for me working in... I've had a chance to work a lot of places all over the world. LA and New York, it's a business and it's just like, get a job done, move the next thing.

And it's just a job. They're all a bunch of jobs. And there's few people who are like, "No, it's more than a job. I have to really take care of this thing and make sure it's executed properly, and I want to treat my people well." And when I'm watching people do that, they stand out to me in this business. And you did, immediately I'm like this person's extraordinary collaborator with great taste and attention to detail. And like those things, I mean, are priceless and they're so hard to find, accountability. So they all amount to accountability, whether it's treating people well or getting the job done or delivering above and beyond. And you absolutely did. I just remember actually like a week later being in the big marketing meetings and watching them present these pieces and I was like, "These are extraordinary." They were so happy. I'm like, "Yeah, you should have seen how they were shot." So yeah, I remember that day lot.

Alice Gu: Well, I am nothing without the good people I surround myself with.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah. You have a great eye for talent. I mean, that's another thing is that you know. I mean, we've worked on projects where you've had to bring on people that I didn't know. And I just trust that if you're like, "Oh, this person's great." And I'm really mindful of the people that I work with and usually to vet them. I know that if you're recommending somebody, I don't even have to have a conversation with the person, I'm like, "Cool, Rad. They're going to be amazing." And every single time they have been, I've never like... It's awesome. So you do surround yourself with great, smart, creative and kind people. So yeah. I'll save all the glory about Alice until the intro that you don't get to hear until the episode's public. But let's talk about Donut King. So how you've been on a journey with this for, publicly, about a year now. I remember, I think it started going out in the world, it would've been SXSW, but COVID changed that and became a digital type event. And that was about a year ago, right?

Alice Gu: Yep.

Duane Fernandez: So over this last year, how would you describe how Donut King has been a part of your life?

Alice Gu: It's been such a weird year because Donut King was such a large part of my life. And it was, I mean, there was no blueprint for it already for things going digital or having to... What I had imagined for my life for that year, I was like, "Oh my God, this year's going to be so fun. I'm going to be here and there, there's going to be so many fun parties. I'm going to meet all these new friends." It's going to be like, "Oh, I can't wait in the fall, I'm going to be in Hawaii. And then we're going to be in Napa with me and Martha's vineyard, all these different places." I ended up being in my living room basically the whole year and, oh God, it was a whole ride of emotions with COVID hitting and the festivals counseling.

Selfishly, I thought that Donut King might become a ghost film. Everybody was preoccupied, no one was really... This was something that was so new and unprecedented in the world that all people were talking about was COVID and all I really wanted people to talk about was donuts. I was really afraid that it was going to be a ghost movie and we would never find a home for it. No one would ever see it and what I'd work, not I, the whole team had worked so hard to create was just... We were like, "Oh my God, are we just going to self-release this at some point, and I'll just have to be happy with that and accept it." But the world did end up... People are funny. People adapt and they found ways to pivot into digital formats.

And I found myself doing a lot of virtual panels and Q and A's and participating in virtual film festivals and actually winning some awards and getting acquired and getting acquired internationally and getting acquired in other territories and it was awesome. It was awesome. I can't say... I don't have anything to compare it to, but I would imagine that it doesn't beat the real thing as far as being out there in real life, in the world that I had imagined that I would be in before the 2020 COVID year. But it was a tremendous year.

Duane Fernandez: That's amazing. I'm so happy to hear that you feel that way about it. You've probably have said this, I'm guessing roughly 200 times, but how do you describe The Donut King to people who... When you're doing these interviews, like when you're doing podcasts and you're talking to press, how do you describe what The Donut King is?

Alice Gu: Gosh, The Donut King is, and you're right, I have said this 200 times, but I still have to struggle to find the words every single time. And I don't really know how-

Duane Fernandez: I love that.

Alice Gu:... that's the possible. I feel like it should be out there, like rapid fire now, but The Donut King is a movie about, I really think it's everybody, it's all of our movie, because we all have... I mean, unless you're from one very particular ethnic group, we all have roots somewhere else. We're all immigrants to this country, America, where we are, whether that's first generation, second generation or fourth generation, we all... Somebody immigrated here from somewhere else to look for a better life. And that's really what The Donut King is about. It's about finding the American dream. It's about a Cambodian refugee who escapes genocide and war in his native Cambodia, arrives penniless to Camp Pendleton in 1975 to a country with no money and no friends, no knowledge of the culture with the family and has to figure it out and with grit and the kindness of strangers, he finds his footing here in America.

And within three years becomes a millionaire in this country, shakes hands with four US presidents and build an unlikely empire of independent donut shops. And along the way, there's the second wave of Cambodian refugees. And since he was already established, he sponsored hundreds of refugees, helping them get their solid footing in America and they're shot at the American dream and multiplied. And so, it's an American dream story. It's an immigrant story. And I say, American dream but it is really... It's a very American story.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah. I agree. And thank you for sharing that, I thought that was... I'm always amazed when filmmakers are able to talk about their films after doing a bunch of press especially like a year of it, it's not like you and I are doing this interview a week after the sale or SXSW, and you're still trying to find it. But I love that you're still like, "I don't, I haven't. There isn't a soundbite." You're just still discovering it. And I think that you... Whenever I hear you talk about it, I think you will continuously... I think that will keep evolving. I think you'll keep changing, because as the world changes, the story does in a way, right? It has the core of what the story is. But as every year that goes by, there's a new... You cover a lot of topics.

There's going to be a new element that's going to shine and pop out and resonate with fans. It was such a wonderful documentary. I'm so amazed that I'm blessed to know who you are so I can talk to you about it because it is great. I know because of COVID, you didn't get to watch people leave a theater, but I have to imagine at some point when the world slowly opens up, there's going to have to be a special live screening. And as those people are leaving, watching The Donut King and they're walking out of the theater, what do you hope they feel when they're walking away?

Alice Gu: I had two, quote, unquote, theatrical experiences with The Donut King in this last year. For one, I did have a sneaky in person theater experience.

Duane Fernandez: Oh awesome.

Alice Gu: There was one theater during our theatrical run. There was one theater in California that was playing The Donut King and it was in Orange County. And I just said, I looked at the risk and the reward and I said, "Look, I just, I have to go. I can't have my first movie release and not see it theatrically." So I went and I invited The Donut King's family because a lot of them are in Orange County and they all came. We sold out the theater, at COVID capacity, but we sold out the theater and this was the reaction. This was what I really wanted. What mattered most to me was the family reaction because they had placed their story that is so precious and so personal to them.

And they entrusted me with it, for me to present it with care and respectfully and truthfully. And their opinion is really the one that mattered the most to me above all critics and everything else. And we left the theater in Christy. So this is Ted's ex-wife, she was there and she came out and some of the grandkids and they came out crying and they thanked me. And they said, "Thank you so much. Now we know so much more about our grandpa that we didn't really know." Christy, I talked to her, she said, "No, that was so good. It was incredible to see it on the big screen." She's like, "It was really hard to relive some of that trauma and to see it on the big screen." And we mixed it with the intention of seeing it on the big screen.

So the war and the bombs, that was all, gosh, I don't know, triggering for her, but that was hugely rewarding to get the approval of the family. And there was another virtual screening was with USC and actually it was part of the USC school cinematic arts filming film series. And I think the guy who curates it, he wasn't just being nice. He said, "The turnout has been overwhelming about triple what it usually is." It was like 338 people who had tuned in and the Q and A from that screening had this energy and buzz like no other. And so many people were just buzzing with questions and they were thinking about, and this is... It wasn't just young people, it was current students and it's faculty and it's alumnus.

So it really is a whole range of people. But some of the younger kids that they see America as, I don't know America the way that it's been, and they see this film, they're like, "Hey, we really love this and we really connected with it, but you do you think that this is still possible? This is a different time." It's been pretty cool to dis America as of late. And this wasn't, I didn't make the film to be like, yes, pro-America with a pro-America banner, I just really presented the information as it was, which was years ago, we had some different policy when it came to accepting refugees and immigrants and building on the success and building this kind of future legacy and generation of Asian Americans or what have you.

And they said, "Well, can you still do this? The American dream, this can't happen now. This is dead. This would never happen today." And I said, "No, I think you are wrong because I recently just spoke with kind of a new friend of mine from Egypt who had escaped Arab Spring to come. I mean, he grew up at a certain socioeconomic class in Egypt and would only end up in a certain socioeconomic class in Egypt. And he goes, "Look, now I live in America. I just married the girl of my dreams, this American girl, we live in San Diego, she's a surfer." He's like, "I'm now a surfer. I'm an Egyptian surfer and I have this job." And he's like... So from his perspective, he's like, "What is everybody complaining about? This is the greatest country me in the world." He's like, "Trust me, I came from Egypt." And when he said that story, I was like, "Oh my God, perspective is everything."

And Jose, my producer on it, he answered the question the same way. He says, "You know what I think, really, if you're not from here, you have a different relationship and different perspective of what America has to offer, and so, no, that American dream is not dead."

Duane Fernandez: The animation, how did you approach and the decisions to what to animate and how to animate it? I was really curious about how you did that.

Alice Gu: I worked with my editor, Carol Martori on how there were so many blank spaces where we didn't have visuals to cover a story. And we're like, "Okay, well, could we use archival here? Could we use animation here?" And I'm very analog. So I have the whole script printed out and we were like writing it and looking at everything and looking to see if there were consistencies. We're like, "Oh God, we can't just have it be a mess. We have to have some sort of cohesive story here, whether it's everything that's before 1970 is animated and everything after is... We can recreate it or whatnot." And we started on that path. However, we did end up breaking the rules and it didn't bother me and I hope it didn't bother anyone else because you're like, "Oh God, is it going to seem like a mess?" But no one, fingers crossed, no one has said anything.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah, I didn't know too.

Alice Gu: I mean, there was some trial and error. We did do some recreations of scenes and we stuck them in, we're like, "This looks like film school 101. We cannot do this. Let's go back to animation." And we just found that the animation was the most powerful way to tell the stories. Andrew Hem, the artist, his key artwork was so deep and rich. There was just nothing, I mean, there's no comparison.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah. It's so good. And I think that even just that... One, first to answer your question, I didn't notice it and I'm a stickler when it comes to editorial stuff. So I did not notice the rules breaking, never felt that way. I didn't feel like you were cheating at any point with the animation. Yeah, no, it felt so good and I loved it. And the music, going back to soundtracks in the beginning of our conversation, was extraordinary. The way that you blended the animation with the live action and then you pick the perfect soundtrack, if you will and tracks to help punch up and the emotionality of it. By the way, you should have a soundtrack. Is there a soundtrack that I can just like... Is there a Spotify playlist?

Alice Gu: There is. Liza Richardson made one.

Duane Fernandez: Oh, awesome.

Alice Gu:

So there is The Donut King soundtrack on Spotify.

Duane Fernandez: All right. I'll definitely share that in the podcast notes with everybody. What was your favorite track? There's a lot of really good tracks in this. What was your favorite track in this film? I know that's a lot to ask.

Alice Gu: Oh geez. It's one of two. I'm sure you know the answer to one, it would be C.R.E.A.M. It's Wu-Tang. That one means a lot. And also, it was so hard to get that track that it... That one, I feel like that is like an Oscar. I feel like that should be on a pedestal for me. And the other one is our title sequence. It's Geek Down by J Dilla. However, it was supposed to be Workinonit.

Duane Fernandez: So what happened?

Alice Gu: 10cc would not play ball.

Duane Fernandez: Mm. So...

Alice Gu: It's a very contentious sampling and contentious litigation between J Dilla's estate and 10cc, not clear, not clearable.

Duane Fernandez: Oh, it's a bummer.

Alice Gu: And the irony is the 10cc track that is sampled for Workinonit, is called Worst Band in the World.

Duane Fernandez: Oh really?

Alice Gu: And I'm like, "Come on 10cc." I'm like, "You really are being the Worst Band in the World right now, if you're not clearing this track." So that is the story behind. Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: I didn't know. I mean, I felt it was really, I mean, anything J Dilla but with... Going back to C.R.E.A.M, were you in camera when you were like, "I need to put..." Was it while it was happening that you immediately heard the song C.R.E.A.M while you were filming or did you see it and then you're like, "We got to use C.R.E.A.M."

Alice Gu: I wish I could say that it was all me. So Carol, and we had our assistant editors, we had [Ramel Mendoza] and we had Rob [Menalong] and we'd given this kind of rough directive. They're like, "all right. Well, what do you want from music?" I said, okay, well, compositionally, I want this kind of flavor, music and tracks that we're going to license. This is what we're looking for with a hip hop bent and this is the energy, this is the flavor. And I saw a rough cut of that first scene. And it was Ramel who dropped in C.R.E.A.M. And I was like, "Oh my God." There could be no other track. And I knew the phone calls that I had to make right after that. I had to call Jose. And this is a documentary, we don't have any money.

And I had to call Jose. I'm like, "Jose, don't kill me." He's like, "What?" I'm like, "There's a song." I'm like, "This is non-negotiable. We have to get this song. It's Wu-Tang." And Jose, bless him, so he never panics. And he says, "Okay, all right. We'll work it out." But I know inside he's like, "Fuck Alice." And then the next thing I do is I call Liza Richardson and she... A lot of tempo music and editors, they're kind of the music supervisors. They can be the bane of the existence, because they will do something like put C.R.E.A.M in there. And they're like, and the music supervisor is like, "There's fucking no way we can clear this." We don't have the money, this is an unclearable track or for whatever reason, I was like, "Liza, don't kill me. I got to clear C.R.E.A.M, and she was like, "oh my God." She's like, "We don't even know if it's clearable." But is it nonnegotiable. If it can be cleared, we have to get it. And anyway, I utilized every trick I had up my sleeve to get C.R.E.A.M.

Duane Fernandez: That's amazing. And editors are very clever that way. And I think it's not only in features, but in an advertising and in trailers too. I think that one of the best advice I could give people who want to work in [inaudible] and work on trailers is to put in the dopest song possible because it will sell through the idea whether they can clear the song or not, the client, the producers, the financeers are going to be like, "This is the greatest sequence I've ever seen. This is the greatest trailer I've ever seen." You're like, "Yeah, now we got to find a new song."

Alice Gu: And that is the power of music. And that is why they're so expensive and deservedly so because they make you feel something.

Duane Fernandez: Oh they're just so highly emotional.

Alice Gu: And for cream to set the tone of the film within the first 40 seconds, that's it, you know you're in for a ride.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah. It's good. It's so good. I love that story so much. One of my favorite questions to ask people is, so this is not the question to you, what's the best advice you'd give to your 16 year old self? I'm not going to ask you that question. I'm going to ask you, what advice would you give yourself when you first started this journey? If you can go back and give yourself one piece of advice, like right when you started working on The Donut King, what advice would you give yourself right then that you learned along this way?

Alice Gu: It sounds so cheesy, but it's never give up. I mean, and that's everything. I mean that is never give up. I got C.R.E.A.M, never get up. I mean, never get up, never give up. I got the mansion scene that's in the film. That is something that I wanted for about 18 months.

Duane Fernandez: Really?

Alice Gu: I mean every single day, every single day, morning, noon, and night, I was like, "How am I going to shoot inside that mansion?" Did I ever tell you the mansion story?

Duane Fernandez: No, I don't know the story. Please tell me.

Alice Gu: Okay. The mansion that he lived in, and is featured prominently in the film, integrated community. I was like, "How on earth?" Never in my wildest dreams did I even think about getting the interior of the mansion, but I just wanted to get an exterior shot. I'm like, "I have to show how a big and baller he lived at one point." And in a gated community, I called an influential person that I know in Orange County. I was like, "Hey." I'm like, "Can you help me?" I'm like, "You must know somebody." I'm like, "How can I get into these gated communities?" And he was like, "God, Alice, the gated community is... They're gated for a reason to keep people like you out. And you can't just walk in. It's on the lake and you can't just roll up with a big old camera."

He's like, "Oh man." So I'm like, "I'm really not going to get the mansion." The best I could find was an old picture from the MLS of the mansion. And then that just kind of wasn't cutting it for me, but I sort of accepted, but not really. And so when Ted was here for three weeks and it was the day before he was going to leave and I thanked his oldest son, Chad, for driving him around, taking time off work, driving him from Orange County to Pasadena and all over. And I said, "Oh Chad, thank you so much." And he's like, "Yeah." And around Newport all over the place. And I said, "Thank you so much. We got a lot of good stuff. "And I'm like, "Took that trip down memory lane, your first condo." And he's like, "Yeah."

And it was more of like a little comment, like sort of under my breath. I was like, "God, I wish that mansion in Mission Viejo, I can't believe that's the one that got away." And he said very casually, not even, he said, "Well, if you have $3.2 million, you can buy it. It's on the market." And I was like, "Stop, stop, stop. Did you just say that it's on the market?" And he said, "Yeah." And I was like, "What is the address?" 27572 [inaudible] or whatever it was. I immediately typed in the address. I went to Redfin, immediately scheduled an open house.

Duane Fernandez: Amazing.

Alice Gu: And I was like, "Okay, how am I going to do this?" And I had to scheme him all my different stories. I'm like, all right, do I pretend that Ted is my father and I'm going to go in this weird crazy rich Asian. And my dad's going to buy this for me and I film everything because I'm an influencer. I'm thinking of all these different ways-

Duane Fernandez: I love it so much.

Alice Gu:... of how I'm going to go in with a big camera. The realtor, his name is Joe [Piscopo] of all names. He calls me and he said, "Hey." He's like, "So you're interested in the open house?" And I said, "Yes." I was ready to spit a number of lies out there and he said, "Okay, great. Well, if you can just show me your proof of funds and a pre-qual letter." And I was like, "Proof of funds on a $3.2 million purchase and a pre-qual." I'm like, I'm not pre-qualified to buy 3.2 million house. And I was like, "Okay, think fast. Think fast, think fast. How am I going to lie my way out of this one?"

And I decided to come clean. I was like, "Joe, I'm going to tell you, I have no interest in buying this house. I'm not going to buy it. This is what I'm up to. I'm a filmmaker." Da, da, da. I tell him the story. There's a brief moment of silence. And he is like, "Alice, that is incredible. I'm going to help you." And I was like, "What?" He's like, "I'm going to get you this. I have to help you. You have to go inside that house." So he calls the owner and I mean, if hours go by and Ted's leaving tomorrow and I was like, "Joe, what's on?" He's like, "Oh God." He's like, "I'm helping, but the owner's not playing ball and the realtor,." He's like, "Hey, can you tell me what kind of last name this is? It's these two letters, A N." And I'm like, "Oh." Now I'm like, "It's a Chinese person." I say this being a Chinese person. I'm like, "Okay." I'm like culturally, the Chinese person isn't going to be the one who's like, "Oh yeah, sure. I'll let you in my home."

Duane Fernandez: Just come swing by and check it out. Yeah.

Alice Gu: For no money. And I'm like, "Okay, can we offer money?" And he's like, "No." He's like, "They're being sticklers. They want the letter. They want a pre-qual letter and they want proof of funds." And it's like, "Shit, I can't believe we were so..." He's like, "I'm so sorry. We really tried." And I was like, "No way." Come nine o'clock that night, 9:15, 9:30, way too late to call someone you don't know. I couldn't give up. And I was like, "What is the name of this guy?" I'm like, "This realtor must have his cell phone number listed somewhere. I'm going to call him right now." And I look him up and I fine his name is Jackie [inaudible], he has a 66 number. And I call him again. Again, way too late to be calling somebody. He picks up the phone and I said, "Hey." And I decided to come at him in Chinese.

Duane Fernandez: Okay.

Alice Gu: And I said, "Hey, I don't have the money to buy this house. This is the deal." And he listens and listens and he's like, "Okay, the lock box will be open for you tomorrow at 8:00 AM."

Duane Fernandez: What?

Alice Gu: And it worked.

Duane Fernandez: Wow.

Alice Gu: And we were there the next day filming in the mansion.

Duane Fernandez: Wow. That is unbel... I can't believe I don't know this story.

Alice Gu: Never, never give up.

Duane Fernandez: That's incredible. By the way, I'm going to end a series notes for this episode. I'm going to have to give a shout to both these real estate agents because that's awesome. And anyone in Orange County area looking to buy or sell needs to use them because that's amazing. I'm glad that they heard this story and both of them were like, "Oh cool, thanks for telling me, and I want help." That's extraordinary.

Alice Gu: The Chinese one was a little... I had to control him a lot more. And he was reluctant because Chinese people are very superstitious. And he says, "Oh." He's like, "You mean, somebody went bankrupt in that house." He's like, "So I'm very worried now, if somebody's going to see this movie and this house is for sale, a Chinese person isn't going to buy the house knowing that somebody else went bankrupt there first." And I said, "You don't have to worry. This house will be sold long before this movie... I have a year of editorial ahead of me. Don't even worry about it." And he said, "Okay, okay. They said okay." And I'm like, "I'll pay you money to open up." He's like, "You have to pay me money." He's like, "Just go."

Duane Fernandez: That's incredible. Yeah, never give up. I think that's the one thing that a lot people don't realize when they embark on a big venture, whether it's writing a book or script, producing a film, purchasing a documentary is the amount of... You have to be your biggest cheerleader. You have to be the one that wakes up every day that says, "I have to overcome these 156 problems today and get this project across the finish line." When you come up with the idea, it's super fun and exciting. When you get into it, you start to actually putting the things together is when that perseverance really, really has to come into play. And I think it's one of the most important attributes to success in any industry is perseverance, but especially in creative, because creative's such an emotional rollercoaster. You come in and see the incredible cut with the cream over it.

And you're like, that's amazing. And you go home and you've got to challenge to get through a handful of issues. And you just kind of want to quit at times. And you just to yourself in your own moment of time, be like, "I can't believe we're doing this. This is exhausting. It's so much easier to do something else. Why did I put myself through this?" And you kind of ask your... You give yourself that moment. And you're like, "You know what? No. Now we go back to making phone calls and see if we can get a tour of this mansion." So, incredible work. That's awesome. What a cool story.

Alice Gu: Thank you. Sorry, it was a little long, but I hope it was worth it.

Duane Fernandez: No, no, that is totally. I mean, that's the thing, it's oftentimes when I hear interviews and I hear whether it's a creative or a professional business person in economics or technology, whatever it is, it's always the success stories, right? It's always when the... It's always about how easy things were. It's not these little detail. When someone goes and sees The Donut King now or if they did see it, they'll go look back at that scene and not... At no point in the documentary do you talk about how hard it was to get the scene. So you're going to be like this sequence, this scene was that hard and how important it was after seeing the whole film, that was critical. Watching Ted walk to that house was so deeply emotional. Imagine the height of your success 20, 30 years ago and you have to go back and walk through that mansion, literally you're walking through a ghost town and you're just like, "This was a previous version of myself."

And watching him is almost like, as I can imagine from a production standpoint, everyone just disappeared when he was walking through that house, it was just him. And you could tell, no one was there anymore. It was just Ted by himself with his thoughts in this structure and I love that. And knowing this story now only makes that scene that much more valuable and special. So, awesome.

Alice Gu: Yeah. I can't imagine not having that scene in the film. I don't know what we would've done.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah. It just ties so much, so many things together. That was so funny, I have a question right here, do you speak any other languages? You speak Mandarin?

Alice Gu: I speak Mandarin, Spanish, English.

Duane Fernandez: Incredible. Did you grow up speaking Mandarin or did you learn it later or was it a part of your life from the very beginning?

Alice Gu: It was my first language.

Duane Fernandez: Did your parents speak to you only in Mandarin or did they do both?

Alice Gu: My mom only in Mandarin and my dad at some point gave up and spoke English.

Duane Fernandez: Why did you feel when you started this, that this story needed to be told.

Alice Gu: Oh, you know what? It wasn't even... There wasn't so much conscious thought into it. It was right when I read the story and found out about the story, all of the five senses just lit up and maybe it was being in the [inaudible] or whatever it is, but it was just, it was this feeling of this is it. This is the story. And I was possessed like I had never been before that with every fiber of my being the conviction, that this was a story that had to be told, but if I reflect on it now and why all of the synopsis were firing in the way they were, I think it was because it was my story. It was me. It was my family story without being my family story. I instantly emotionally connected to the story of them coming here and building a life for themselves. And these are stories that I've never heard from my parents about their experiences and what it was like and how did you feel? And were you scared or the language? Did anybody make fun of you? You raised American kids.

These were questions that I never asked, but every single story I could relate too. And I think that it, it was a way that I could tell my story without it being my story.

Duane Fernandez: How can we make the world a better place?

Alice Gu: How can we make the world a better place while this will be a bit of a Pollyanna answer, but I am an optimist and a glass half full person. And it is a bit of this donut diplomacy, I feel like some of the best connections and understandings are made with food. So in The Donut King story, when Ted arrived in Orange County, a very white homogenous Orange County in the seventies and people Ching Chong'd him and made fun of his language and couldn't really understand him, that's the first reaction. Are these people bad people? Maybe it's a little mean-spirited, but they don't really know better. And as they got to know him and made friends and Ted said, "Look, when we started making a little money, then I would donate $5 to like Billy's little league game."

And then they're like, "Oh, they're cool." And then you start asking questions. In fact, there's a movie that I'm working on right now. And it was a psych experiment from the nineties, the [inaudible] experiment, and it's 36 questions. And it said it guarantees two people, any two people can fall in love if they go through this exercise of asking 36 questions. And you realize that we all have this exterior. If you're a rapper, if you're a skater, if you're a surfer, slacker burnout, if you're a nerd, we all kind of adopt these different narratives that we present out to the world. And you don't really present out to the world your deepest vulnerabilities are like what you really are. And I feel like more of that understanding whether that can be breaking bread over food or whatnot, but I feel like that is what can make the world a better place, taking the time to think about some empathy and the fact that we are... Actually, I think that we're more alike than we are different.

Duane Fernandez: Thank you for taking the time to listen to our conversation, it means a lot. And if you enjoyed it, please take a moment to subscribe, share it with somebody, leave a comment. All those things help these stories reach a wider audience. You can watch The Donut King on a variety of streaming platforms. I'll actually link the trailer and the official website and the show notes so you can find more information. You can find The Donut King on Instagram at The Donut King Film. You can check out Alice on a Instagram at G Bird, G-U B-I-R-D. And as always, you can find us on Instagram at The Smith Society Pod. Have a wonderful day, and thank you so much.

The Donut King
Executive produced by Academy Award winners Ridley Scott and Freida Lee Mock.

Alice Gu on Instagram: www.instagram.com/gubird

“The Donut King” Trailer: https://youtu.be/aLKugGKgJsQ

“The Donut King” official website: www.donutkingmovie.com

“The Donut King” Spotify playlist: https://bit.ly/the-donut-king-playlist

Find us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/thesmithsocietypod

Host: Duane Fernandez
Email and ask a question or share a thought: info@voksee.com

The Smith Society theme song by: Steady Cadence
Steady Cadence is a brilliant father daughter duo out of North Carolina. There is an episode later this season about the theme song, their unique sound which blends together analog and digital, their inspiration, creative approach and how Cadence, who is currently in middle school, has so much soul.

The Smith Society logo: Designer, Chris Scott
Sound Mixer: Paul Stula
Edited by: Marshall Baker

Follow your dreams, no matter where they take you.

S1:E3 Justin Chon and the Blue Bayou

In this episode we’re going to feature a true triple threat, Justin Chon. Justin Chon is a writer, director and actor who also produced (he’s technically a quadruple threat!) the film “Blue Bayou,” a moving and timely story of a uniquely American family fighting for their future.

A Story that Matters: Speaking to Issues of Today

Blue Bayou Logline: As a Korean-American man raised in the Louisiana bayou works hard to make a life for his family, he must confront the ghosts of his past as he discovers that he could be deported from the only country he has ever called home.

Blue Bayou is a moving and timely story of a uniquely American family fighting for their future. Antonio LeBlanc (Chon), a Korean adoptee raised in a small town in the Louisiana bayou, he is married to the love of his life Kathy (Alicia Vikander) and he is the step-dad to their beloved daughter Jessie. Struggling to make a better life for his family, he must confront the ghosts of his past when he discovers that he could be deported from the only country he has ever called home.

Justin Chon is known for his '90s LA Riots drama Gook (2017), which won the NEXT category of the Sundance Film Festival and went on to win him the Independent Spirit award for "someone to watch" in 2018. He followed up with a contemporary Koreatown sibling drama MS. PURPLE (2019), which also premiered at Sundance.

Duane Fernandez: I'm very excited about today's episode, as I get to share with you an amazing conversation I had with the actor, writer, director, Justin Chon. We'll be talking about his film Blue Bayou, which comes out this week and I'm very excited for you all to see it so we can talk about it. So please see it, let me know, let's discuss.

Blue Bayou is an official selection of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. It's a moving and timely story of a uniquely American family fighting for their future, Antonio LeBlanc played by Justin Chon, is a Korean adoptee raising a small town in the Louisiana Bayou. He's married to the love of his life, Kathy who's played by Alicia Vikander and is the stepdad to their beloved daughter, Jessie. Struggling to make a better life for his family, he must confront the ghost of his past when he discovers that he could be deported from the only country he has ever called home. I had a chance to see the Blue Bayou and it's absolutely 100% one of the most incredible films I've ever seen. It's astonishing, it's mind boggling to me and incredibly frustrating at the same time that Justin Chon is so damn talented. I find it personally offensive and slightly unfair.

After seeing the film, I sat in silence for over an hour just thinking about the story, the world, the characters that Chon had so thoughtfully created, the cast, those exceptional performances, but I kept coming back to Chon and how he did this. How did he do this? I was very grateful that I was going to be able to have a conversation with him, so I could learn a little bit about how he was able to pull this off. What happened for the following days in a couple weeks leading into three weeks is that I sat with this film and I kept thinking about it, whether I was in the car, I was at home or I was working, I kept coming back to this film because there's so many different elements of this movie that I'm blown away by. He wrote an incredible script, then he directed a beautiful film that has a clear point of view, then as an actor, he gave us an absolutely sensational performance and when it was all said and done surprise with his meticulous approach and thoughtfulness, he created an absolute masterpiece.

So let's talk to him about it. So I watched this movie on Wednesday, I text one of the publicists after a watching this movie and I said, I've never had a reaction to any movie, like I did watching this movie, like ever. I honestly spent the next 24 hours really just thinking about life. I think about my circumstances and then I spent the next few days, damn how did this guy do this? We've got 30 minutes to just dive right on into it. So how did the story come to you?

Justin Chon: I started writing this five years ago and I started hearing through the adoption community that there was this issue of adoptees being deported, trough these of loopholes and paperwork. Then I read a string of news articles and watched some videos about it and I found out that nobody really was talking about this or knew about this and it was really being glanced over in the whole immigration policy of it all. It was shocking, I just couldn't believe that a child or a baby can grow up from a different country by Americans and then the US government allows that and then 30 years later decide that they're not American citizens because their parents didn't file the proper paperwork. When you're child, how could you have possibly known that this is an issue? You don't know to look for this.

It's the adults responsibilities that this stuff gets taken care of. You can't put that on the adult like it's just, I don't know. Being born the US, I don't know what kind of paperwork happened when I was born, birth certificates and I've lost my birth certificate a few times. It's just ludicrous to me that this was happening, so I realized that no one was even knew that this was happening, I felt this deep need to share this issue on film. That's where it came from and there's this long process of finding a way to tell this story in an effective manner, but not making it feel like propaganda and just bringing empathy to somebody that was actually going through an experience like this. That was my main goal.

Duane Fernandez: Well, you did it. Every single conversation I've had in the last five days has been around just so many things around you, I could sit here and have a conversation with you for 30 minutes about acting in this movie, I could have a conversation with you directing this movie, I could have a conversation writing this movie. I just don't know how you accomplished it. So you find this story, you find something that it really resonates with you and you're like, I want to try to put a light on this and to your point, that's not propaganda, I want to tell through the human elements of it. Why Louisiana? There's so many elements, what made you pick the Bayou? Was it an idea that you already had that you're kind of marrying or was it all kind of coming together?

Justin Chon: I think the big thing for me was we've seen the Asian American story from New York and Los Angeles and the coasts. What I haven't seen is representation for my community in other places, whether it be Louisiana or I have family friends from South Dakota and someone like Steven Unice from Michigan. We're all over and for me another thing was specifically Asian American stories are very limited to one ethnicity, so one film can only handle within one ethnicity. So it has to be like a Chinese story or a Korean story and rarely do I see just two ethnicities in one film and how they relate and are similar and are different. So New Orleans specifically, there's a huge Vietnamese community there, they came there, a lot of them were relocated there as refugees after the Vietnam war,

I dated somebody from New Orleans, so I had an intimate understanding of Louisiana and I always was like, the film needs to be filmed here about Asian Americans. Then as an adoptee, not me but is the adoptee experience, there's a whole encompassing thing of what's it like to be placed somewhere where there's not a lot of people that look like you and what must that be like? That is the experience for some adoptees and rather than being adoptee in LA or New York, I think it's a little different. So the representation of that I think is quite interesting, seeing an Asian American with a Louisiana accent could be off putting it first and then I put it right in your face in the first scene and then by 10 minutes in, you forget about it.

That's how I think things become normalized, is you just have to expose it and then make it not make this huge deal about it and people just accept it and I think that was a big goal of mine. Then New Orleans as a whole is such a resilient place, they just dealt with a hurricane and yet they carry on and that's how I felt Antonio was, he's a survivor and New Orleans is also very diverse, but very diverse in a different way that Los Angeles is. Those are all factors in placing it in the south and specifically in new Orleans.

Duane Fernandez: Well you talked about representation and how when you put these things on screen they normalize those experiences to the audience but the key is when they're done correctly and you layered in so many elements, just so seamlessly. Louisiana was such a beautiful backdrop for the creative tone that you had, the textures, the colors, the tone of the film visually, like, I almost wanted to go back and watch it without any sound because there was the pacing of the camera, the film, along with the performances that you and everybody had came together perfectly and then it felt normal. This movie gives me goosebumps and whenever I think about it. How long did you write the first draft, when you finally felt like you wanted to take it out and share it with somebody in a real business manner, how long did it take for you to get there?

Justin Chon: Me personally, I'm not scared to just put it out there and get feedback right away and every script is different, but this particular one... the first draft doesn't resemble this film whatsoever. I just had to get something out that was just whatever my subconscious and then the ideas and sort of my subconscious elements are in this film but in terms of the structure a lot of it you wouldn't even recognize it. I just had to get something out and just be like, this is what's in my heart and these are the things that turn me on right now. Then it was about, okay, what are actually the elements that are important in this film and with the things you were talking about, the layering of it all and getting all these myriad of themes and characters, how do I make this all coalesce into something that's cohesive and feels like a film and not just like, just things that excite me? That's through the rewrites.

First and foremost, it was about this experience of an adoptee and what is that like? So to your point about it being in the south and the colors, and there's something that I have felt that's melancholic when I've spent time alone in the south being Asian American, that really resonated with me. Just by you being next to these really peaceful beautiful places that I feel like, speaking to a lot of adoptees, there's a sense of, who does understand you, who shares the same experience as you, and that melancholy loneliness that I found the south has at times. So it was just about finding those sort of things and then just finding the spine of, okay, this is about bringing empathy and the process of what would it be like to find out the government doesn't recognize you as American and dealing with that? That's the spine and then layering everything else on to help you deal with that internally, I think was how I layered everything.

Duane Fernandez: Getting that into an outline and into a first draft, did you feel it was a six months to a year or was that pretty quick to a point that you're not afraid to share stuff quickly, was it like three months? How long did it take to get you there?

Justin Chon: I think three months is right around where I started really sharing it but I got opinions early on just to get certain... but I did work with a few adoptees very hand in hand and I was sharing stuff with them very early on, just is this authentic? Does this ring true to you? What was your experience? Because that authenticity was very important to me because this is their story and I'm just the conduit in making sure that I can service them. I spoke with the Macro, the production company about this early on, I said, "I don't want to do a treatment or an outline for this." I will do as many drafts as you want. I'll do 20 drafts, if that's what it takes for you guys to be satisfied, but don't make me do these step processes, because it's going stunt my creativity of what this could be and the free association and flow of the way I work.

If you make me categorize this and vet this for you in that way, I think it's going to limit what I can make this from just an emotional standpoint because then you're making me think about it very logically and one thing leads to another, and this is breaken to act two. Can you just let me explore and find this in a untraditional way and thankfully they were open to that and let me do it, which is why I think this film is what it is. It's kind of the way I have to approach each film, each script, is it can't be this process of okay, usually last time I did it like this, so this time it must work for this. It's like, okay, I don't know where this is going to go, I don't know how this is going to end up and that fear of it being shitty, I think it's a really great motivator for me to think deeper.

Duane Fernandez: Well, that makes sense, I love your approach because if you go through that step process and you start with a treatment and an outline, it starts feeling very formulaic and then it starts getting in your own head where you're like, oh, I need to figure out what I'm going to do the second character before the second act. You're finding it in the story and letting the story dictate it and if you're down to do a bunch of drafts, that's awesome, that's amazing.

Justin Chon: I think you get into the mode of professional writer mode, Hey, I'm going to give you a draft and I'll give you a rewrite, that's like the Hollywood way, but I'm not doing it for that reason, I'm doing it to shine a light on this issue. So I'm not concerned with doing 20 drafts because I want it to be good and why wouldn't I do that? I'm not doing this as a job. So I think it shows in the film that, at some point it needs to resemble somewhere, so you have some form of a script at some point, and you're like, okay, I need to make this into a film. It does need to have structure and these characters do need to serve their purposes, but I don't want to start doing that till, like you're saying, the story starts to lead and tell me what it needs to be in order to do that spine of bringing empathy.

Duane Fernandez: Did you continue to tweak the script while you're in production or was it locked for more or less when you started filming?

Justin Chon: For all my films I do, I will make changes but for this film, not so much, there's things I cut out for sure, there are scenes that it was so painful to cut out, there's are two particular scenes that I wished I could have kept. One was Parker, you're seeing kind of maybe behind a curtain of how she's dealing with her demise, her death and she on this bridge of this freeway overpass, and she sits on the edge of this overpass. She's inconsolable, she's crying like crazy and you can tell she's thinking about maybe I should just end it now and there was this serendipitous thing where all of a sudden fireworks started going off in real life.

I didn't plan that and I just looked at the [inaudible 00:15:59] I was like, is this for real, is this really happening? It was so bright and she was bawling her eyes out and these fireworks were going off and I was just like, this is a gift from God and I just had to cut it. As emotional as it was, we didn't serve the sequence and it felt like tangential and there was another scene like that towards the end with Ace and Kathy, that was you beautifully acted between Alicia Vikander and Marco Bryan, it was just an Oscar level scene in terms of the acting. It just the pacing of the film. So those scenes were written and I had to cut and just painful, but in terms of the structure and what's on the screen, I'd say is relatively what's written.

Duane Fernandez: Wow. That's incredible. Well, I look forward to the director's cut so I can see those scenes. I can't imagine how hard it's to cut all that out, especially on the bridge, that sounds like a beautiful moment. I think one of the things I kept going back to was the pacing of this film and I think that, again, your ability to be the writer, director and the actor in it really just pulls you through this story. I couldn't tell if this movie was 15 minutes long or 40 minutes long or two hours long, because I was so enthralled with every little detail and it just kept me engaged and the pacing of it was so perfect. It never felt fast, it never felt slow, really well done, sir.

Justin Chon: Oh, thank you.

Duane Fernandez: How did you? How do you approach being in it because I think that just your acting performance alone, is one of the most incredible things I've seen in the last few years. How did you approach the day? You'd wake up in the morning and your director taking care of business decisions and creative decisions, how did you find the time to get into these incredibly powerful roles, when you're having to answer questions and take care of business?

Justin Chon: Specifically for that, I'm trying to take care of everything that's within my power beforehand. Anything that I could possibly address before the day I'm doing it, so like planning and preparation is super important to me if I'm going to act in the thing. I did a lot of rehearsal with my daughter in the film and with the other characters, Alicia we talked in depth about everything and discussed everything we could beforehand so that when we were on the day, we weren't debating or trying to figure things out, it's let's go, let's do this. So that helps a lot and then I did all the preparation for the acting part, I did all the emotional in preparation beforehand and the acting org, so that I wasn't thinking about that. When you're acting and directing in something, you kind of as a performer come last.

So, because of all that preparation, when I come to set I'm in service to everybody else, I am not thinking about what I'm doing as a performer, I'm like, I need for the actors to feel taken care of and confident in my vision and also what I need from them. So that comes first and then I step in and then because of the preparation, I just engage and I know where I am in the script and then I'm present. So for example, that scene, the one with Alicia where we had a big fight in the kitchen, my biggest thing I told myself for that scene is, okay, I've done the work, let's block the scene out, let's see where we need to move the camera and what's going to make sense logistically.

Then it was, okay I know the DPs are going to have my back in terms of making sure the composition and all that's going to be good and then I was like, okay, I'm here to be present and be completely available to Alicia and let's see where this takes us. So I was completely open to whatever would happen or whatever mistakes. The one rule was don't break, no matter what happens, we have to keep going. So what you're seeing in the filming I think is the third take. I think the actors really appreciated that because I'm in it with them. So if I'm asking them to stand under a freezing rain, I'm doing it with them, so there was this sort of trust and camaraderie where I'm not asking them to do anything that I wouldn't do and I think that in itself creates this collective energy that maybe you wouldn't have if you weren't also acting and directing.

Duane Fernandez: With your trust and your DP, when you said that you would roll these takes was the idea that you would do a scene and then just run it right back and just go back to your first mark and do it again?

Justin Chon: I just go again, I never watch playback. I never watch playback, especially if I'm in it, because if there's any doubt, let's just do it again. Let's not waste of time. If watching a take is the same amount of time that it takes to do a take and let's just go again. The other thing is any adjustments we need to make, we make the adjustments right away go, Hey maybe you came a little too far here, how did that look, could you get both of us in the frame or then maybe I should just move a little bit forward in this moment. Then we go again, we just like, okay let's keep this momentum going. I'm a big advocate of momentum while shooting. I don't want things to get stale, I don't want to feel overplayed, I call it riding the lightning and you got to stay in the moment.

Alicia really feels that actors are like thoroughbreds, you have a window, especially for these emotional scenes, you can, but it's probably not the best thing to do is run these emotional scenes for hours. You have like the sweet spot. So you're trying to ride that sort of wave. So like the Mo the momentum is important, so I'm not trying to over intellectualize things, I'm trying to really feel it out and then we just go. There are other times when you're watching daily's with your DP, I do rolling edits where I'm editing as I'm directing, those are times where we can reflect but if you've done your preparation and you have common understanding with everybody that's making the film with you, let's just go like. Let's trust that we've done the work and trust ourselves.

Duane Fernandez: You have a very confident point of view that it's the right point of view. Have you always had that confidence with these decisions or did that take time for you to craft?

Justin Chon: Oh, absolutely time to craft and it's just ultimately comes down to what matters to me in storytelling. So I'll always take performance over technical or composition and that drives my DP fucking crazy because I'll just be like, let's go. He knows that if a performance is really great in a certain take, I'm going to use it even if part of it is soft and that drives him absolutely nuts, which makes him sometimes feel like, not let me roll. Then ultimately what's the purpose of the thing is what are we watching? Of course all that stuff is important and I am also get completely fixated on certain things but I think it comes down to what matters to me. Generally the movie feel like it has direction and is intentional and has a color palette and is directed and not an accident and are we delivering on what the script promised and all that stuff and then at the same time is it effective? If it's just technically sound, no one will care.

Duane Fernandez: When you look back at this experience, especially on set, what was the hardest day? Was it from the actor point of view or is it from a directing point of view?

Justin Chon: I'd say every day of this production was pretty hard but we lost day because of weather, there was this rain and water levels rose that we couldn't get to the Bayou that we were shooting at. So we lost a day, so you have to truncate stuff. So we were under some time pressure and there was a scene where we're trying to get all this stuff and I'm on a motorcycle and it's raining on me and the water that we were a reservoir that we were using was from the actual Bayou and it was absolutely freezing. So basically the water was so cold that I was getting brain freeze, but we didn't have time to try to warm it up, we just had to go, so I can't feel my hands and I'm trying to rev this motorcycle, it's quite dangerous and I'm trying to have control of this motorcycle and then we have a stunt guy who's also having trouble.

That day was quite difficult and it was night time and there was visibility issues and the lighting to adjust it, it's a condo, so it takes time to move. All those factors were quite difficult in that moment and the whole limit of time was challenging. The amount of stuff that we had to get at that Bayou was really hard in terms of how limited we were. The era of margin was so small already as it was because it's not this big budget film, so I think that particular day was probably one of the most challenging.

Then the party, the Vietnamese party by the end of it, I was just moving stuff myself and cheating stuff moving people around because we just ran at a time, we only had that house for really a day, a day and a half. I don't know what it was that I forget but by the end of it, I was hauling ass and we also had to get Alicia singing and want to get that right. It was-

Duane Fernandez: On some movies the party would be three nights and you'd film the singing one night and you'd film the first half of the party one day and so that was all in a day?

Justin Chon: Yeah and like I said, you're riding the lightning and I want to get the outdoor, the partying in golden hour and you have a window there and you're trying to time all of that.

Duane Fernandez: There's a lot of times where I'm watching the natural light and I'm like, they nailed that, how did they get that? That's incredible. So without getting any spoilers, I don't want to share the end of it but was that a day? Was that final scene was that one day?

Justin Chon: That's one day.

Duane Fernandez: Unbelievable man. I don't understand, we're just going to need two more hours to discuss this and we don't have it. So I can't believe that. So I can't wait for the listeners to see this movie and imagine that last scene in one day. So what do you want people to feel when they leave the theater and they see this movie, what is the thing you want them to feel when they walk away?

Justin Chon: Just like you're saying in the beginning, it's always all these things and I think the reason why it's so emotional is there is... we were at Ken and you get the reviews and some people feel it can be dramatic at times. Well, that's intentional because the whole purpose of this is I want people to feel something and I want people to just align themselves with somebody who's actually going through something like this. So it's intentional, they're supposed to feel, it's not supposed to be just slice of life. I don't want to let people off the hook and I want people to walk away from this film and think twice. They could be laying in bed and think twice about these characters, what happened to Antonio? What happened to Kathy? How did they end up? What happened with them?

I want there to be questions and to think twice, because then I think you think twice about this issue, which is this is happening to real people and it doesn't let them off the hook. I think if the ending is tied it up into a neat bow, it lets people kind of forget about it and they can go about their lives and just kind of like, oh, that was cute but that's not real life. I think that talking to real adoptees that have been deported that I've screened this film for, they're very appreciative of that aspect of the ending of this film because they feel it represents what it really feels like for their experiences and that's the most important thing for me, because I made this film for them.

Duane Fernandez: I love it. I have one last question for you. What's your comfort food when you're having a bad day and you're just thinking about, I can't wait to get home and make this. What is your comfort food?

Justin Chon: Pasta with a stick of butter. Basically I'll boil the pasta, I'll melt a stick of butter in a pan, and then I'll take all the pasta and just throw it in the pan of butter and then I'll make the sauce on the side and I'll just use a shit load of chili floats and just destroy my stomach.

Duane Fernandez: Justin, I wish you the best of luck. This has been such an amazing conversation, I still have so many more questions, but I will listen to every interview you do to uncover all the answers. So I appreciate your time, I know you're a busy dude.

Justin Chon: Thank you so much. Surely appreciate your time.

Duane Fernandez: Thank you man, bye.

I'll include a link to the trailer in the show notes, as well as a link to the official blue by your website. You can follow Justin Chon on Instagram at Justin Chon, C-H-O-N and you can find us on Instagram as well at the Smith's Society pod. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this, you're awesome.

Blue Bayou
Focus Features in association with MACRO and eOne presents Blue Bayou
Written and Directed by: Justin Chon
Produced by: Charles D. King, Kim Roth, Poppy Hanks, Justin Chon
Starring: Justin Chon, Alicia Vikander, Mark O’Brien, Linh Dan Pham, Emory Cohen

Blue Bayou Trailer:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh59H_d19Kg

Official Website for Blue Bayou:
www.focusfeatures.com/blue-bayou

Get tickets for Blue Bayou:
www.focusfeatures.com/blue-bayou/watch/

Find us on Instagram:
www.instagram.com/thesmithsocietypod/

Host: Duane Fernandez
Email and ask a question or share a thought: info@voksee.com

The Smith Society theme song by: Steady Cadence
Steady Cadence is a brilliant father daughter duo out of North Carolina. There is an episode later this season about the theme song, their unique sound which blends together analog and digital, their inspiration, creative approach and how Cadence, who is currently in middle school, has so much soul.

Edited by: Marshall Baker

Follow your dreams, no matter where they take you.

S1:E2 Lee Sung Jin and the Octopus

On this episode of The Smith Society we sit down with the wildly creative and brilliant Lee Sung Jin.

Lee Sung Jin is currently the Creator/Writer/Showrunner/Executive Producer of BEEF, a Netflix series starring Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, produced by A24.

Lee's current television development includes: an A24 animated pilot, THE IMMORTAL JELLYFISH, with writer Joanna Calo, designed by artist Lauren Tsai, and NOWHERE, a half hour pilot with Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Point Grey Pictures and Lionsgate Television, directed by Rhys Thomas (DocumentaryNow, Hawkeye).

His past credits include FX’s DAVE, Amazon’s UNDONE, Netflix’s TUCA & BERTIE, HBO’s SILICON VALLEY, and FX’s IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA.

We recorded this interview in the fall of 2019.

Lee Sung Jin: instagram.com/beherelater

Duane Fernandez: Hey welcome. This is The Smith Society podcast, a podcast about storytellers on storytelling. I'm your host, Duane Fernandez, and I've got some ice stuck in my throat, so I have to go take care of that.

On today's episode, we're going to feature the incomparable Lee Sung Jin. He is currently the creator, writer, showrunner, executive producer of Beef, a Netflix series, starring Steven Yeun, Ali Wong, produced by A24. He has other television products and development with A24, FX, and Landscape. He has a lot of other products and development on the feature side as well. He is the hardest working person I know. His past credits include FX's DAVE, Amazon's Undone, Netflix's Tuca & Bertie, HBO's Silicon Valley, and FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I remember hearing about Lee Sung Jin years ago. Everyone I knew was raving about how nice he was, his impeccable style, and really just how talented he was as an individual. I've been following his career for over 10 years and when we were brainstorming people to feature on season one, I knew this was my opportunity to ask him all those questions I've been dying to ask. But I knew getting him on the podcast was going to be a challenge, but against his better judgment and some debating, he said he'd do it. And I'm so grateful he did. So let's jump in.

Oh, and one final note. This was recorded in fall of 2019. It was a much different time, although only a few years ago, but it's important to note because I think it helps frame some of the conversation. I hope you enjoy.

All right, so I'm going to ask you a few questions. I would like for you to pronounce your name, both ways.

Lee Sung Jin: Oh sure. Well my Korean name... Well, my given name is Lee Sung Jin. In Korean, you put the last name first. So, that's why I like director Bong Joon-ho, Bong is his last name. So yeah, I mean, my legal name is Sung-Jin Lee, but I like to present it now as a Lee Sung Jin, because that's the Korean way.

Duane Fernandez: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: And when did you decide that you wanted to focus on the Korean aspect? Or when you wanted it the traditional way?

Lee Sung Jin: Oh yeah. Well, I was born in Korea and then I moved around a lot. I moved to the states when I was nine months old. And then, I moved back to Korea from third through fifth grade. And, when I came from Korea to Minnesota in sixth grade, I had gone by Sung-Jin the whole time. And then, in sixth grade, Minnesota adolescents, the name got made fun of a lot. And, the teacher would just mispronounce my name every attendance, every day, like, "Sung-Jin," throwing in consonants that weren't even there. And so, I was so frustrated that one day I was just looking at my homework and in the name section, I was like, "You know what? Sunny." And I just wrote that for some reason. And it stuck. And, I went by sunny forever since then, since sixth grade.

And then, I had no intention of ever changing it, because everyone knows me as Sunny. I seem like a Sunny, I guess. But about a year and a half ago or maybe two years ago I used to live in Santa Monica and there's this coffee shop, Dogtown Coffee, that's awesome. Shout-out Dogtown. And, they had called my order and they read the name on my credit card, and these two grown white women laughed at my name being called, because it's very foreign sounding. And, I felt shame and I grabbed my stuff and walked out really fast. And, I didn't like how that felt. And, I thought, "Oh, I should try to change the stigma associated with Eastern sounding names."

And so, when I, when I think about director Bong Joon-ho or [inaudible], when I hear those names, they sound badass to me because they make really amazing content. And so, I was like, "Oh, if there's more Korean sounding names that are associated with dope stuff, then it'll help change the stigma around that." And so, I think the first time I started going by it professionally was on Tuca & Bertie. And that was the first time in credits that it appeared that way and I really liked how that looked and felt, and so I stuck with it.

Duane Fernandez: Dude, I love that so much.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah. And you're absolutely right, the more people hear that, the more people understand that there's different cultures, and there's different sounds, and they're just normal, and they're actually awesome.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: And the people who are making this content, they're extraordinary people.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: And you should know the names, and you should know these sounds.

Lee Sung Jin: Exactly. I mean, so when I was growing up, I just felt so much... I moved a lot in the Midwest and I felt a lot of shame about my Korean-ness. And, I think you do so much to try and distance yourself from it as a child and be as white as possible. And, I feel like, now things are changing in a great way, hopefully. And, for other Korean American kids out there, it's just cool to like have more stuff that looks and feels familiar, out in the open. And if more people could be doing stuff like that, then there's no way culture can't acknowledge that, that's cool.

Duane Fernandez: Absolutely. And then, they hear a kid living in Omaha, hears about this cool movie, goes to see it, here's this name. And, it just becomes part of their vernacular, and part of their reality that these are names, and they're normal, and they're like, "Hank stop saying the word extraordinary because he's such a great director."

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. He's the best.

Duane Fernandez: I mean, it's just unbelievable. Well, that's cool. That's neat. When you were growing up, you said, you moved from Seoul to Minneapolis?

Lee Sung Jin: First, I moved to Urbana, Champaign because my dad was going to grad school there. And then, we moved to Lafayette, Louisiana. And then, downtown Minneapolis. And then, Plymouth, which is a suburb of Minneapolis. And then, Korea. Let me try to remember, and then back to Wayzata, Minnesota. And then, San Antonio. And then, I went to college in Philly. And then, my parents moved to Ames, Iowa. And then, they moved to Naperville, Illinois. And I would go to summer there, during my college years. And then, I moved to New York after college. And then, LA.

Duane Fernandez: Wow.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: Of all those places, is there one place in mind that you have fond memories?

Lee Sung Jin: No. There's pros and cons to everywhere, I think. I mean, yeah, I think I have 50/50 pros and cons of each place.

I definitely have probably a fondness for Minnesota, because that was my junior high years and you form a lot of your opinions and taste during that time. But, yeah, I feel like, in hindsight I really like that I moved around a lot, because it just makes you aware of many different people and forces you to adapt and be open. But, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't recommend it as a parent, I don't think in the present kids like doing that too much, but it was cool, looking back.

Duane Fernandez: There's one thing that I'm fascinated by Minneapolis, because early 2000s there was this weird hip hop scene that came out of there, and atmosphere and ELP. And I'm like, "What is happening in Minneapolis where there's this incredible sound of white rappers and white producers that were doing very emotional hip hop." Like Atmospheres - God loves Ugly is this really emotional journey. And, his girl broke his heart, so he wrote her album about it. And I'm like, "What's happening up there?"

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. No, Minneapolis has an incredible art scene. I mean, I wasn't too privy to it because I was pretty young, but I would always want to go to, I think, it's 1st Ave, was a venue there. And that whole area, you as a junior high school kid heard about how cool it was and artistic it was. But, yeah, all of my friends actually in junior high in Minneapolis, I think, they were the most artsy friends I've ever had. It's a weirdly very creative place. Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: I think it's because how cold it gets, you're in your house and you're like, "How to make stuff?"

Lee Sung Jin: Very cold. Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: The coldest I've ever been in my life was up there. I was in college and I was in Madison, Wisconsin. And it was negative 25, and I'm like, "Why do people live here?"

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, I remember one school morning, the windshield was negative 70 and it broke a record. And, I think we still had to go to school. I don't even know what that number means now. Even positive 70 now is cold to me. Negative 70, what? But yeah, it got very cold. And, yeah, I think maybe that might be part of the reason. I mean, hardship does spring up good art.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah. When you're traveling around the middle of the country, what did you want to be when you were growing up? Did you have one thing? Did you have many things that evolved? But, what was going through your mind at that time?

Lee Sung Jin: I'm not sure. My parents were pretty traditional and I didn't really think about... I feel like my mindset growing up, wasn't so much like, "What do I want to be?" Or dreaming of things. It was more like, "What am I supposed to do? And, how high of an SAT score am I supposed to get?" And, it was very rigid. And I felt like there were rules to life and I had to do this to get to that. And so, I wasn't dreaming as much as I was like, "Oh, there's a plan set out for me, and I'm just supposed to do these steps, and then everything will work out." Which, it did work out, but it definitely didn't work out the way anyone had planned. But yeah, I studied a lot and did really well on my SATs and-

Duane Fernandez: What was your number?

Lee Sung Jin:... I think I got 1560. Yeah. My sister actually got a 1580.

Duane Fernandez: Wow.

Lee Sung Jin: And so, yeah. And, I went to University of Pennsylvania and I thought I was supposed to be an investment banker and I majored in economics. I did really badly in it. Can't tell you anything about economics now. But yeah, it was a very different plan. But, looking back, I would say that I always had a creative side and that's what I probably was drawn to just as a human. I remember I did this thing, I think it was in sixth grade, called Odyssey of the Mind. I don't know if that's a state national thing, but it was this cool, extracurricular group and you were given prompts, and then you had to create anything from this prompt, it could be a sketch, or a play, or a musical. And then, judges judged how creative it was. And then, there was a national tournament.

And, I remember I loved that so much, and I always did really well in writing courses and anything creative. I was very musical growing up, I played violin forever, and guitar, and piano, and stuff. And so, definitely, it was there, it was just supposed to be an extracurricular to put on your resume so that you got into a good school and not a profession. Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: Do you still play stuff?

Lee Sung Jin: I do. I actually thought music was going to be my first thing, out of college, I was in a band. And, my first internship was at this independent music label off of Sony called Barsuk Records that Jack Ponti, who is the guitarist for Bon Jovi and he wrote a bunch of songs. I reached out to him on this internet forum and he gave me an internship.

Duane Fernandez: I love it.

Lee Sung Jin: And, yeah, I really thought music was going to be my thing, because it's probably my first love. But yeah, I thought that was going to be the route, but it didn't work out. I mean, so I still play for fun, but I don't think I could do it as a job. Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: It's a tough gig.

Lee Sung Jin: It is.

Duane Fernandez: So, you travel around, you pursue this major in economics at Penn. And, here you are and you're a writer. So, take me through the journey of how you go from being at Penn as a economics major to being a creative writer.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, it was mostly just being bored. I graduated and then I didn't really know what I was doing and I moved to New York with no real plan. I actually remember I packed my Honda CRV with all my stuff. It was wintertime, because I had stayed in Philly after I graduated. I think I was helping out with a church or something. And, I packed all my stuff and I was planning to move to New York, and I stayed over at a friend's place. And in the morning, when I was walking up to my car, I saw some of my ties thrown about in the snow. And I was like, "Oh no." And then, I looked at my car and the back window had been smashed and they stole literally everything I owned. I had covered my stuff with a blanket thinking that, that would do the trick, that people were dumb enough to be like, "Oh, that blanket must not be hiding anything."

So, they stole all my stuff. I actually had a bag of important documents. And it had my passport, diploma, everything in there. I still don't have a diploma. And the only thing they left were a couple CDs, which is very insulting, like, "Not only will we steal from you, but your taste is not great. And so, we'll leave this Aladdin soundtrack right here and take everything else." And, that was my first move to start my adult life. And my friends at the time, they were so kind and they pulled together a bunch of money and gave me a couple hundred bucks to move to New York. And, shout-out to Jason Min and David Kim who coordinated that.

And, I moved to New York and I was really depressed and really poor for a very long time. I just found roommates via Craigslist, which is not a great way to find roommates. And, I moved around so much in New York, because I couldn't afford any place for very long. And, I remember I lived in Greenpoint, this is before it was cool and I just never or left my room. I watched the OC nonstop. That's all I remember. That's actually when I started blogging, this was early blogger days. So, it must be 2003 or 4. And I blog a lot about the OC. That's all I blogged about.

Duane Fernandez: Please tell me the records of this exist still.

Lee Sung Jin: I actually deleted the blog, but it got really popular. It was called Silly Pipe Dreams. And actually, it was the one thing I enjoyed doing. And so, I did that a lot and I just created this weird following because I would post about music that was on television before anyone was really doing that. And, Josh Schwartz actually found my blog and I started having some communication with him via that. And, yeah, it got pretty big. But I was doing and just trying to find a job. And then a friend of mine got me in for an interview at the NBC Page Program, at 30 Rockefeller, it's literally Kenneth the Page with the blue blazer and stuff. You're making $10 an hour giving studio tours and stuff.

And so, I got in. And that was great, it was a lot of fun. Met some really good friends there. And, I got a job at The Today Show, which I hated because my hours were 1:00 PM to 4:00 AM, which is the opposite of humans. My depression got worse. And, I had met a friend through the program, this guy, Pat Walsh, and both of us were interested in writing and we decided to try writing together. We don't write together anymore, but we started our careers together and we wrote this pilot about The Page Program. And, it somehow got into the right hands. And, we were fielding offers from agents and we flew out to LA to meet with all the different agents and that started things, I guess. Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: How long were you a page?

Lee Sung Jin: I wasn't a page for the full year. It's a year program. I think I was maybe six months or so.

Duane Fernandez: So, creative writing wise, the OC hooks you into telling a story. Is that the first time that you're actually putting yourself out there in creative writing? Had you done stuff prior?

Lee Sung Jin: No. Yeah, blogging was my first... I had a Zenga back then, pre-blogger. It was the worst Zenga imaginable. It was just me trying to break into parties I found in New York. I would research what premieres were happening. And then, get dressed up in a suit, and go by myself, and then somehow sneak into these parties and just be there alone. And I would sit by where the orders were coming out and that would be my dinner for the day. And then, I would try to network or something. And yeah, those were dark times. But, my Zenga was just updates about those nights. And, thank God it's no longer available, but blogging was my first... And, I wouldn't call my blogging creative writing at all, it was just fanboy-ing more so. But yeah, my first time really writing anything creative... I mean, I wrote stuff for school and growing up, but the first time was with Pat, just watching a lot of television, and reading a lot of books, and that became my new obsession, since I like to stay in. And so, I just spent hours watching stuff, trying to just become obsessed with it and put in my 10,000 hours. And, yeah. And, I feel like, as long as you're passionate and obsessive about something, you can pick it up pretty quick, anything I think.

Duane Fernandez: Well, the formula's out there, right? You can watch a great show, you can break it down, you can start understanding acts, and you can start really creating a beat sheet.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: And seeing like, "Oh, there's..." I won't say, "A formula here." "But there's something here that works. And maybe I can use my own creativity to come up with my own thing that works, that maybe I can innovate."

Lee Sung Jin: I think that's exactly right. And, I think for myself, it's easy, and for a lot of people it's easier to just get stuck in that first phase, which is, mimicking others. And I think, I mean, in general in being a human that's what we're doing most of the time. You're born into this world, and you as a child are mimicking behaviors, and tastes, and things, and learning how to be. And, I think with writing, it's the same thing, where at first, you're looking at other things that were supposedly good and trying to break it down and copy that. Not copy and paste that, but just absorb that. And, I think for a majority of writers and definitely for myself, you get stuck and think, that's what writing is. But like you said, there's this next phase that hopefully one can get to, where you learn that, that exists, and then realize, "Oh, that's just what other people do. Doesn't mean I have to do that. How do I want to approach this? What are the rules I want to make?"

And then, you learn to define your own type of storytelling and your own voice. And, I think that comes hand in hand with also, you as a human, learning to filter out the stuff that you've absorbed from other people and trying to figure out who you really are, and who your true self is, which I had to do in order to get to... I feel like my career has two phases. And, that first phase, even though I did have success with it, it was me mimicking others, and just trying to fit in, and do stuff that I thought people would like. And I found that, me as a human, I was doing that as well.

You come to LA and you're just trying to fit in with the crowd, I guess, or at least I was. And, I would go to general meetings and people would be with executives and they'd be like, "Oh, what's your favorite comedy of all time?" And I would say, "Caddyshack," because that's what everyone said. But I don't like Caddyshack. And I would just say that, because I thought that's what you're supposed to say. And so, the first phase of my career, I definitely think I was unhappy because I was not being true to myself in my writing, nor as a human being in just life. And, it took a big breakdown/breakthrough in order for me to realize, I don't have to do that. And, I can start trying to get to know who I really am. And then, my writing, I think, has slowly started to reflect that more and it's taken me a different direction, I think.

Duane Fernandez: That's awesome.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: That's really beautiful. And I think that there's an evolution there. And I think that what you discover to your point is, you're trying to understand how... I mean, I think by the very nature of the studios and the networks imposed the will of mimicking, and they want that, they want the next... By them saying, "We want the next Seinfeld." They're looking for material that represents something that was successful in the past.

Lee Sung Jin: Yes.

Duane Fernandez: And so, with that, as you're coming here as a young creative person, you're like, "Okay, that's what they want. So, I'm going to go and look and start mimicking." To your point, one, it's human nature. Two it's then, this system is actually telling you that's what they want. And then, so an innovative idea is a risky idea. So, if this idea doesn't comp against something, then it's super risky, and you really have to find someone that can really be a champion of that and sell it through. But, I think your path, what it has shown is, you can be very successful by fitting in within the system, being very good at that, finding your voice along the way, and then discovering how do I make my voice and how do I take my story, my truth, my vulnerabilities, and apply them in a way that I... Now that you know how the system works.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, for sure. Because ultimately, I think, people, whether they know it or not are probably seeking authenticity and truth. And, it's not even just the studio systems that are enforcing this, it's just society in general. The status quo, just so much of our lives are people telling you, "Oh, be normal." Or, "This is the way." Or, there's a very hive mind nature to us. And so, you're constantly feeling like you have to contort yourself to fit in this predetermined shape as a just being. And I think that manifests in the studio system, but also just with people. And, I think, looking back, life has just been a long journey of filtering out people who are trying to fit you into this thing and finding people that allow you to not only just be, but be the purest form of yourself.

And, yeah. So, it is tough. It's just a constant battle, for me anyway, to give me the space to do that. And that's, I think, why I don't really like go out that much. I'm a hermit. And, I used to go out a lot, but now, I think it's tough. Because when you go out and you surround yourself with... When you put yourself into certain environments, you can't help but absorb that energy. And then, you take that back with you. And so, I try to shield myself from that a little bit.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah. So I think that you're... To a comment you said earlier, we're learning these things from society that are... There's something wrong with being a loner, there's something wrong with being a hermit. I'm not saying that those are the same things, but we have all these preconceived notions through society that, "No, no, you've got to be outgoing. We love charming people. We want people who can hold a room and hold court. And those are valuable people to us as a society." And we're starting to realize like, "Actually the people who are introverts or very quiet are actually innovating society through technology, through stories, and it's because they want to be alone and they just want to work on their craft. And, please let me do that."

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I mean, I think it's very valuable, because that's the only way you can really give yourself the space to get to know yourself. And I think that's the troubling thing about the times that we're in with social media, and Instagram, and Twitter, and stuff. It's designed for very outgoing external facing personalities. And, I find that there's a trend in terms of writing and just in the industry that they reward more people who are very outgoing, thus have more followers. But, traditionally a lot of writers are very not good at that. And, a lot of personalities don't enjoy that. And, it's tough to maintain that when the system, especially online that we've created, doesn't really give shine to that personality. But yeah, I think it's really important to give yourself space of that. Because, that's the only way you can really hear your own voice, because it's pretty loud otherwise.

Duane Fernandez: Well, yeah. And on top of that, when you're actually going out and doing all these events, you're going to your agent saying, "You need to go to network at this event when you're early in career. We want you to go take these meetings." And you're like, "I have no time to actually write. When do I write? When do I actually get to sit down and be quiet with my thoughts and come up with ideas if I'm constantly running around?"

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean writing, it's 90% just doing nothing. It's hard enough to write without stuff going on, because I'll spend a week at home and six out of the seven days is just mostly me moving from spot to spot, like, "Oh, I'll sit here for a little bit. Hmm, that's not working." And, I get nothing done, but it's just me wandering around the house. But that does set the stage to then on the seventh day, hopefully you channel something and something comes out. But, it's a very fragile process for me. I know writers who can pump stuff out. I certainly can't. But yeah, for me it's a very fragile process where six days of solitude and I'm hoping that something will spark. And then, something will interrupt me. And then, I have to start over, and then do another six days of just sitting around. So yeah, it's hard to write and also be social for me. But, everyone's different. And, I know there's plenty of people who can do too. I'm envious because I don't know how.

Duane Fernandez: Well, yeah, there's different phases. I think that while you're moving around, there's all these things going on in your brain, they're actually trying to figure out all the little steps, connect all the dots, figure out the structure, figure out a character. "What's this character... Where what..." And, even though you're not writing, this stuff's happening in your brain. And, I think that's where the magic happens, right? If you were to have connected to a biometrics, you'd see all this little magical light happening in your brain, even though you're just moving around from your spot.

Lee Sung Jin: Oh yeah, totally. I mean, most of the stuff I'm working on now, I've been sitting with it for years. Yeah. Most of the subconscious work, it's done over a really long period of time, just daily, just interacting with your environment and thinking about stuff, it's very little actual writing.

Duane Fernandez: When you're able to create a home, when you get to a certain point where you can actually create an environment that actually elevates your subconscious elevate... You have beautiful things around you that inspire you, you have quiet, you're able to create this world. It's almost a garden, you've created this soil that's rich, and as you plant seeds, they grow faster. And you're like, "Well, I've spent all this time. I've worked towards creating this home. Why would I want to leave it?" Are you a early riser or a night owl?

Lee Sung Jin: I'm definitely a night owl. Although lately, I've been waking up earlier. But, yeah, I find that weirdly the 3 to 4:00 AM time is probably when the best writing comes out, unfortunately.

Duane Fernandez: And, do you know through your creative process now that, "I'm going to need these nights where I'm up to four morning trying to break through here?" Or is it something that is common in your pattern now, that just some nights you're just throughout the week, "Yeah. I'll be up until 4 or 5."

Lee Sung Jin: I definitely am trying not to do that, just because I'm getting older and I can't. But, it just shakes out that way. I mean, I've been trying really hard to just have more of a regimented schedule of writing. But yeah, it's tough, because I just think that, that for me is the magic hour, because most of the world is asleep. So it's very quiet. And, there's just less clutter to have to get through to tap into the source. And so, I just find it easier, stuff flows better at that hour, even though I'm very tired. And maybe it is because I'm tired, because then you're not overthinking things. And, you can just be in the flow. But yeah, there's definitely a drastic difference between how much gets out between three and four, and all the other hours.

Duane Fernandez: Do you collect anything?

Lee Sung Jin: I do. I collect finals, a lot of first pressing, and I also collect a lot of old books. There's this bookstore in Santa Monica, Angel Bookstore, and the owner is awesome. He's a really cool guy. And, he has a lot of stuff. I also go to Bart's Books in Ohio a lot, they have a lot of cool stuff. But yeah, I just love collecting old things. I don't know, there's something about the history of it that feels nice.

Duane Fernandez: Do you think when you see a book, obviously there's a handful of bucket list books that must be in the collection, but when you're at these bookstores, is it the visual element that will pop out or sometimes it's a story you might... What are you drawn to?

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely the standard ones. I had a really early To Kill a Mockingbird, I think, a first pressing. And, the first paperback of Catcher and the Rye, and things like that. But then, I really like 60s culture, and especially like a lot of metaphysical stuff and psychedelic stuff. And so, I have a first addition of the psychedelic Tibetan Book of the Dead that Timothy Leery and a bunch of other people, I think, from Harvard wrote, that's really cool. I have a lot of Huxley. I have a first pressing of Ram Dass, Be Here Now, things like that, just stuff that... I don't know. I feel like that I definitely relate to that time. I think on a probably spiritual level. And so, I try to collect stuff around that. But yeah, it's fun. And, there's something about the texture of it in your hands, that's really cool.

Duane Fernandez: Well, in this day and age of everything being digital, it's so nice to have something that you can hold, and touch, and feel, because even while you're working, I don't know, do you work on a typewriter?

Lee Sung Jin: No.

Duane Fernandez: So, yeah, you're working on a laptop where you're creating something that's so beautiful and important, but it's in a digital form. So, going out and actually getting something that you can hold and help inspire you. There's something beautiful about that.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I definitely have a hard time reading lately, more and more. So, it forces me to retain that skill somewhat. It's very hard to read these days, that's not on a screen. My brain can't process words on paper anymore. So, it definitely forces that muscle to work a little bit. But yeah, I don't think I've finished a actual... I just collect them, but I read them on my phone or iPad.

Duane Fernandez: I try to go to Barnes & Noble once a month, and I'm picking up books and I'm like, "Oh, David said there are short stories on my nightstand, blah, blah, blah." And I'm like, "There's eight that I haven't even cracked open yet."

Lee Sung Jin: Oh yeah, sure. They're much more decorative than anything now.

Duane Fernandez: There's intentions, I do want to read them. Random question, what do you think are robots?

Lee Sung Jin: I think they can be cool. I think it's exciting. But, you mean robots like AI, or robots like robotics?

Duane Fernandez: Any of them.

Lee Sung Jin: I think it's like any tool, where it can be great or bad, like fire. Today, there's these really bad fires out in Granada Hills, and that's bad. But, fire's also great sometimes. And I think AI and robots will be very similar and it depends on the user.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: I had this conversation with... Are you familiar with GiantRobot, the art store do in Sawtelle?

Lee Sung Jin: That's great.

Duane Fernandez: Talking to Eric Nakamura, and asked him this question 12 years ago and he just said something I never thought about. And he was talking about in Japan, he's like, "If you culturally look at American robots, and Japanese robots, and story, Japanese robots or robots that came out of that part of Asia are operated by human beings. Robots in America in sci-fi are AI robots. They have their own personality." And, I just chew on this for all these years to just think about like, "How does that represent us as a culture? What does that mean?" And it's a really interesting point that he had.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. That is weird, but not surprising.

Duane: What's the craziest thing you've ever done?

Lee Sung Jin: I guess, I don't know. What do you mean by crazy?

Duane Fernandez: Looking back on it, I don't think something you regret. It's just something that like, "Man, I can't believe it." It could have been you reaching out to somebody in your career to pursue it. And you're like, "I have no reason I should be doing this." Or, you did a trip that was like, "Oh, that was insane. I shouldn't have done that."

Lee Sung Jin: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Duane Fernandez: Or, when you're in high school, or something even in college, maybe moving to New York was the craziest thing you've ever done.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I feel like every decision or action is pretty crazy. Life in general is weird. How it all adds up to this present moment. But, I don't know. I'd say, yeah, definitely moving to New York was a big step. And, I'm trying to think what else. I mean, I definitely in those early years had no shame of reaching out to people to show my work. And, I definitely wrote a lot of emails to a lot of important people that I don't think I would do now. It's actually embarrassing thinking back on it. I would tell old me to just dial it down a little. But yeah, I can't believe I did that with really no awareness or shame, but sometimes it worked and sometimes I'm sure it really didn't work, but yeah, I don't know where that came from.

Duane Fernandez: Well, it's interesting though, because there's something about having the ability to put yourself out there and also be okay with... Maybe you weren't okay with rejection at that time, if someone ignored you or whatever it was, but it maybe built up your confidence in a weird way.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I don't know. I just knew this is what I was supposed to be doing. And, I don't know. It was weird. With anything else, I wouldn't have done that. For music, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't reach out to a bunch of people to listen to my music. But for some reason with writing... And I think it helped having a writing partner, because then you're doing that for two people. So it feels less weird. But yeah, I don't know. I had this innate sense that it was going to work out, and I just needed to keep pressing. And, I think you hear that a lot with people who are happy with what they're... Or feel like they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, in terms of work, that they always knew deep down that, that's where they would end up. And, I think subconsciously something about it just kept me pushing in a way that I wouldn't for anything else.

Duane Fernandez: Do you remember the moment that you were like, "Oh, this is it. I get it now. And, I want to do this forever. And, I can do it forever?"

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, I think it was those early days, when I was writing that first pilot with my then writing partner. I just found that I could do that and think about that for long periods of time. I could stay up really late only thinking about that. And, I was like, "Oh, there's not a lot of things you can do that with." And so, there's a certain fulfillment when you can focus on one thing for a really long time. And so, I feel like that's probably when something kicked into high gear, I guess.

Duane Fernandez: That's awesome.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: When you started writing the pilot, had you read a screenplay prior to that? Did you understand even just the format of how screenplay worked?

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, I read a lot of blogs. I know you had mentioned John August earlier when we were talking. And, I read his blog a lot. This guy, Ken Levine, I think his name is, that I read his blog all the time. And, ordered some books. Although back then, I don't think I ordered, I went in-person and bought books. And, yeah, I just became a real student. I think, but now I feel like I could probably do that obsessive focus on... I find that I like doing that with other things now too, like design, or architecture, or things like that. I think screenwriting was the first thing that gave me that fulfillment, but I could easily see myself if everything went to shit, that I would find something new to obsess over.

Duane Fernandez: Well, I think that when you understand story, you can apply that to an experience in a museum. You can apply that to a building. You can understand what an audience is trying to... And, I've had conversations with architects, their favorite thing to do when a building's done is go sit in the lobby and watch people experience... Walk through a building and see how they're experiencing the space. And, "Are they looking at things I want them to look at? And, how are they moving the water through this space?" And I think that there's a story. And everyone wants to tell that story, and I think whether you're an architect and you break that, then you understand how to tell that story, you can apply that in other places as well.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think writing helps you deconstruct things. And, there's really only two things that anything does, which is rise or fall. And, once you know that, then you can apply that to really anything. There's actually this machine learning algorithm that, I forget at what university they fed, thousands of pieces of classic literature into this machine learning and algorithm. And, it found that there's only six ways humans tell story. And, it's all different versions of rise or fall. It's like, rise fall, or fall rise, rise fall rise, or fall rise fall. And, yeah. And that makes sense. That's what it's like really. And, I think music is the same way. There's a status quo chord, and then you either rise or fall from it, and then you resolve. And, literally everything falls into that.

And, Kurt Vonnegut actually knew that before. And, there's this YouTube lecture of him graphing rises and falls. And, he famously, I think, coined the term man and the whole arc, which is, I think, a fall rise. Yeah. And I think, that has helped me a lot just in approaching anything, whether it's music or any narrative to know that, we're ultimately only... It's very generic and broad, but that really is what it boils down to.

Duane Fernandez: So, it's a great way to segue into this question. You get an assignment, you're coming up with an idea, you get a project, you've been working on a treatment, you've been working on a synopsis and you get it. You start moving forward with a project. You've got three weeks, you've got a deadline, or however long, it's six weeks, eight weeks, whatever it is. How do you go from A to B? How do you approach it from your... You seem like you're very methodical and also you allow yourself to be creative, but now with your experience, how do you look at that period of time, and how do you get through it?

Lee Sung Jin: Weirdly, I think each thing has a life of its own. And, you just try to go with the flow of it. And, you just approach it differently. Some days I'll try a different way in, or rethink something. Other days I'll watch a bunch of stuff and see if it inspires something. But yeah, every project, it's a very different process.

Duane Fernandez: So, yeah. So, sometimes do you sit there and like, "Okay, I'm going to outline this season." Nope, I'm just going to work on the first 10 pages." Or, "I'm going to build out a character." Or, "I'm going to write a Bible."

Lee Sung Jin: Oh, I see.

Duane Fernandez: Do you do any of those things now?

Lee Sung Jin: Well, a lot of the steps are intrinsically there because of the selling process, for my pilots, at first you get a kernel, some inspiration, and then you flesh it out, and then hopefully find producers that want to do that with you. And then, you go pitch it. And, when I pitch my pitches are very, very intense. I do this crazy PowerPoint presentation. And, usually a Photoshop and storyboard each scene that I'm talking about. And it takes forever for me to finish these presentations. And so, when you're doing that, you've done a lot of the groundwork and you're setting up the general arcs, and different seasons, and characters, and things.

So, a lot of that's done when you're pitching it. And then, hopefully someone buys it. And then, when they buy it, they have their input. And so then, you have to go back, and revisit, and tweak. And then, naturally once you sell it, there's steps. And so, first, you turn in an outline. And then, you get notes on the outline, and then you go to your first draft, and then you get notes on that. So, that gives it some structure. But each of those steps has its life of their own, I think.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah. I can tell you see that. That's neat. I love the fact that you're a writer, but you also spend all this time actually creating the visual elements to sell through your idea.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. Because, I think I'm more of a visual person. I'm actually not a very good writer. It's very, very hard for me. And so, a lot of times when I get stuck... What's helped lot actually. And, this is a unsolicited promotion, is the iPad Pro with the pencil. I didn't think I'd like it so much, but with the pencil I can go and draw each scene that is in my head. And so, I will draw each and storyboard certain areas, like a cold open. And I'll just close my eyes and try to imagine it and then draw it. And then, that actually helps give it some form. And then, I can take that and then create some beats out of it. And then, hopefully that turns into something. But yeah, the visual element for me is very, very important, because I think my head goes there first.

Duane Fernandez: That's amazing. The fact that you said that you don't think you're a strong writer, do you beat yourself up at times about it, or do you like, "Well this isn't my strength, so I'll power through."

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I think, a lot of writers go through similar phases of writing, where at first you're like, "I can do this. This will be good. I'm excited to start this project." And you're like, "I'm pretty great." And then you start, and you're like, "Oh no. I'm not good at all." And then, you finish something, and then you're like, "I'm the best writer of all time. And, this is going to change the world." And then, you reread it, and then you're like, "Oh boy, that's really bad." And so, you go through these phases of thinking you're the best, but then also the worst. And, that's just life.

Duane Fernandez: That's absolutely life. Through your creative process, through this stuff that we've been talking about, your creative phase, are you ever bringing in people for insight?

Lee Sung Jin: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, all the time. I mean, I started doing that probably when my career phase changed. My first phase was that phase I was talking about and that was with a writing partner. And then, phase two was solo, and as I rediscovered myself. I think in that second phase, I started to bring in more people that I trust and I don't feel judged by to, pretty early on, constantly be getting feedback. Because I think, no idea is precious. We're all the same thing really, expressing itself. And so, it's just nice to just constantly be getting feedback and making it better, I think.

Duane Fernandez: Earlier in your career, people were a little more precious about their ideas.

Lee Sung Jin: Right.

Duane Fernandez: Because they think they have this thing that no one else has thought of.

Lee Sung Jin: Yes.

Duane Fernandez: They don't want anyone giving feedback on it.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. And, I definitely used to be that way. And it makes me cringe. And I could still be that way sometimes, but I think now I'm more aware, yeah, again, that we're pretty much the same. We're just like the universe experiencing itself. So, whether I come up with something or someone else does, it really doesn't matter. All these narratives I think are trying to be a mirror of helping us evolve. And so, yeah. And now, I'm like more like, "Oh, just whatever helps." It's more about being a vessel for, I guess, authentic moments, than being possessive about any idea. Which is why it's so funny to me when a lot of times... This happens a lot culturally, where similar ideas tend to pop up at the same time.

I think it's called multiple discovery theory or something like that. I don't know. But, it's how the telephone was invented by not only Alexander Graham Bell, but this other woman on the same day, thousands of miles apart. And I think, it's penicillin or some antibiotic too, that one person's given credit for, but it actually popped up in several places in history around the same time. And I think idea-wise, creatively, that happens a lot too, because obviously, right now there's a lot of alternate reality stuff. And, sometimes people are like, "Oh, that person ripped off that person." But really what's going on, I think, is that, we're all people that are experiencing very similar environmental factors. And so, when you have those inputs that naturally the output, the Venn diagram, can be fairly large. And so, that's why you have these weird instances of very, very similar things popping up. And so, you can't be precious about it, because we're all things just responding to a stimuli, I think.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that what's interesting is that, if you go into a room and you're really precious about this one idea, you're almost saying, "This is the one I got. I don't have many more. So, you better like this one." And I had a mentor early on say, "If they don't like one idea." I'm like, "Well, I got a 100,000 more I can come up with." But to your point, you also realize that there's elements of a story that you have to fight for and that you're like, "No, this is really important to the story." As a writer you know that there are certain things that are, are important for the arc. But you have to receive feedback and navigate that. And then, it's almost a little bit of politics through business. You have to know how to navigate those waters carefully.

Lee Sung Jin: Oh yeah, for sure. And, there's a learning curve to that, for sure.

Duane Fernandez: Of all the characters you've had the privilege to write for, who's one of your favorite?

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I'm not sure.

Duane Fernandez: That's fine. That's fine.

Lee Sung Jin: Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I don't think they've announced the season of the show that I had written for recently, but that was really fun to write for.

Duane Fernandez: In the future, we'll come back to that one.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: As it relates to characters that you've created, do you think you want to talk about, do you have one for that or is that also in the future?

Lee Sung Jin: I try to only write stuff now that I actually care a lot about. I think before, again, first phase, I was selling a lot of stuff just to sell it and to please others, and to try to figure out what the other wanted. And so, now I try to write stuff that I like, and that I find interesting. And so, each project, now for the most part, each character's very fulfilling in different ways. Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: That's amazing. What do you love about your job?

Lee Sung Jin: I love just that it allows ways to express things in my head. It's a nice outlet. And, I do like the collaborative aspect of it. It's a nice balance, for me, of being able to be a hermit, and be in my cave, and just create. But then at times, allow myself to collaborate with people I really love and enjoy, especially lately. I think, the more you filter out stuff that isn't you and your truer to yourself, you naturally draw people that are in line with you. And that's been happening a lot more in recent years. And so, you get to meet a lot of really cool people that you vibe with. And so, that's been really great. Yeah, I've just been really fortunate getting to collaborate with some amazing humans.

Duane Fernandez: That's cool. The law of attraction. It starts coming together.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, it's very strange.

Duane Fernandez: Do you think that there's something that makes a script great? As you're reading, even something that you're not, what do you think makes?

Lee Sung Jin: I think, just for me, I spark to things that feel very true and real, I guess. I think, anything that feels contrived is the stuff that hurts it. And so, yeah, I think the stuff that makes the script good is just whatever feels authentic.

Duane Fernandez: What personality trait do you think is most important to a writer?

Lee Sung Jin: I don't know that there is one. Yeah. I don't think there is one. I think, you just got to be you. And then... Yeah. I know I keep saying the same thing, but I think it's-

Duane Fernandez: But that's a hard thing to do for a lot of people, especially when you're young, to all the things that we've talked about with what society makes us think we are. You actually have to remove all that stuff and then find you yeah and be okay with you. So, that's actually quite complex.

Lee Sung Jin: ... It is. Yeah. It's much harder to do. Yeah. Yeah, it's less of a trait and probably more of the journey that I think is important, but not only for writing, but for anything. Yeah, just trying to strip away stuff and figure out who it is that you are and what you're trying to say. And, the more you can do that, I think, the better your writing will be.

Duane Fernandez: You said something earlier that I keep thinking about. And I was like, "Well, I'll follow-up with that." And I'm like, "No. Actually, no, we've gone on." But I have to go back to it, it's a dog and the bone. You talked about your pitches, right? So, you said that you have this very intricate pitch process. Do you enjoy the pitch phase?

Lee Sung Jin: I do.

Duane Fernandez: Do you love pitching?

Lee Sung Jin: I weirdly love it. I would rather do that than write, honestly, if I could just create PowerPoints for a living, I'd be very happy.

Duane Fernandez: Really?

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, I think so.

Duane Fernandez: So, you roll up to a studio, you've got this big presentation, there's a lot of partners, and you're like, "Give me the ball. I want this."

Lee Sung Jin: Oh, well, you go over it with your partners beforehand. So, they're very aware of what I'm about to unleash on these buyers. And yeah, I bring my laptop and I have usually a 35 to 40 slide presentation with very interactive, multimedia music and trigger points and things like that. And, yeah, it's funny now, I think, the word's gotten out. And so, I think I've definitely gotten some people like, "I have heard about your PowerPoints. We're excited." And so, I got to tone it down a little, but.

Duane Fernandez: Well, weirdly, it's the most important part of the project, is nailing that, right? And that's why I think to some people it's nerve wracking, it's so terrifying, they're shaking before they go on those meetings, they hate presenting, they might be the most outgoing people of all time, but it's tough. It's a tough audience sometimes.

Lee Sung Jin: Oh yeah. It can be the worst, but now I don't get nervous at all. And, it's presentational, and it almost just feels like you're performing or it's performance art or something. And so, I just block out the people that are there and I just focus on... And, my pitches are so meticulously planned that most of the time my brain is just remembering. And so, I don't have time to really think about anything else.

Duane Fernandez: That's smart.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah, and you're giving them an experience versus a presentation.

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. Yeah.

Duane Fernandez: And they're saying something. And, actually, when I think about it, I have a feeling with the Smith Sony, at one point, there's going to be exhibit of Sony's presentations. What advice do you have for somebody who's coming out of college? Comes out of any college in America or around the world and they want to be a writer in Los Angeles. What's the single advice you would give them?

Lee Sung Jin: I'd say, apart from what we've already talked about in terms of giving yourself the space to get to know yourself, I'd say, just put in the hours. I think a lot of people get caught up in the other stuff that they can't control, like, "Who do I network with?" Or how do I get an agent?" And, so much of that is luck anyway, that really the only thing you can can control is your content. And, I just put in the hours, rewrite, try new things, constantly be doing only that, because I think if your stuff is good, it'll naturally open doors for you. And, so many times, and even for myself, when I look back at my early stuff, I would never send it out now, but at the time, I was like, "Oh, this is awesome." But it wasn't, and I could have stood to probably improve a lot of that.

And, the more you can make your stuff great, just the wider the doors will open. And, I think, too many times people blame it on other factors like, "Oh, I don't know the right people." Or, "I'm just unlucky." Or, "I need to be a writer's assistant on this show or that show." And, yeah, those help and those are factors, but if you suddenly wrote the Eternal Sunshine, people will pay attention. It's hard to ignore greatness. And so, just put in the hours to try to be great.

Duane Fernandez: I love that. As far as your current projects, we've talked a little bit about them. And then, out there in the universe, Tuca & Bertie's out there.

Lee Sung Jin: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Duane Fernandez: And, how was it like working on that?

Lee Sung Jin: Oh, I love that show and I loved working for it. Lisa Hanawalt is the absolute best. She says it was her first time show-running but certainly it didn't feel that way. She knew exactly what she was doing, she had a very clear vision, super collaborative, no ego, creates a really safe environment to create. I loved working for her.

I find that in general, Raphael Bob-Waksberg's shows all have environments that are very, very fondly talked about. I have a lot of friends on BoJack and they just love writing for that show. I think he just has a really good knack for good humans. He has a good radar for that. And, I think that's very, very important for a writing environment. Maybe even more important than finding the best talent, necessarily. It's talent so it's subjective anyway, that finding really good humans is super key. And they do a great job of that. And, all the writers on Tuca & Bertie were incredible people. It was super fun, because we were starting from scratch. I mean, not scratch, Lisa had so many ideas already. But it was a new show, which is always fun to think about. And, Tiffany and Ali are such great voices. And Steven Yeun, John Early. I mean just had a banger cast. And so, yeah, it was super fun.

Duane Fernandez: As it relates to what you wanted the audience to feel, at the end of season one, what did you want them to feel?

Lee Sung Jin: I mean, I think we wanted them to feel a really strong friendship between these two bird women. A friendship that felt very relatable and true, even though they're birds. And, I think we accomplished that.

Duane Fernandez: You nailed it. Absolutely.

Lee Sung Jin: Thank you.

Duane Fernandez: We only have three more questions left.

Lee Sung Jin: Oh, yeah sure. And, I don't mind, we don't have to stick to the questions either.

Duane Fernandez: Yeah, no. There's a couple I really am curious about. How do you define success?

Lee Sung Jin: I don't know. I mean, I guess probably with other words, there's financial success, which is easy to measure, because you just look at your bank account. And I guess there's personal success, which is fulfilled and content you are overall. And then, I guess, there's critical success, which is, how well-received you are by your peers. And they're all different. And I don't judge one over the other, I guess. But they're all different. And yeah. Yeah. It's tough to gauge, success is a weird thing.

Duane Fernandez: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Do you believe in magic?

Lee Sung Jin: I guess it depends on... Sorry, I have a hard time defining things.

Duane Fernandez: Of course.

Lee Sung Jin: But, yeah, I guess it depends on what you mean by magic.

Duane Fernandez: Maybe you run into somebody and it was meant to be, do you believe in that the universe provided this interaction?

Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, I definitely go back and forth on that. I think, magic can be as real as your perception wants it to be. And, if you really believe in magic, then of course it is real. But if you don't, then it's not. And so, I think it depends on your own perception. For me, I definitely waffle back and forth with all that synchronicity stuff. But, there's definitely things that have happened that are so strange and so weird that it's very hard to deny at this point. Yeah. But I go through phases where I'm a super skeptic, and then stuff happens, and I'm like, "That's very hard to ignore." But yeah. Yeah. I'd probably lean more into the believer side right now.

Duane Fernandez: Right.

Lee Sung Jin: Presently.

Duane Fernandez: How do you think we can make the world a better place?

Lee Sung Jin: One, by being true to yourself and trying to hear your own voice, the highest version of your own voice. And then, I think there's this Gandhi quote that's probably super cheesy about the only way to find yourself is by serving others. And I think that's probably true and probably a way to make the world a better place, is just to serve others and to not... I mean, I almost wore this other tie dye shirt that says, "Your ego is not your amigo." It's by Online Ceramics. And, shout-out Online Ceramics, they're the best.

But, I do think that the world would be better if we spent more time trying to quiet our ego. And I don't mean pride, I mean your sense of self, because our sense of self is an illusion. There's this part of our brain and the prefrontal cortex, I think, that houses this idea of a self. And I think, so much of our culture is trying to boost that. But when you meditate, or run, or listen to music, or pray, or do psychedelics, or whatever, the actual brain scans show that part of your brain with the self oxygen and blood flow dies down in that area and it quiets down. But then the rest of your brain that never talks to each other, the whole thing lights up.

Duane Fernandez: Wow.

Lee Sung Jin: And so, I think the more we can do that, whatever that is, and whatever activities help you get there, then that will definitely make the world a better place, because you're not thinking about yourself so much. I like to think about it like octopods, like an octopus has eight arms and each arm actually has its own mini brain. And so, that's why when you cut off an octopus arm by food, you can still see it go run off and get the food, because that arm thinks, "Oh, that's my job. I'm an arm. I'm an autonomous arm and I'm going to go get the food. That's what I'm very good at." And then, suddenly it looks around and there's no body.

And, I think that's so interesting, because sometimes I'm like, "Oh, I wonder if we are those arms." We have our brains, but for us, our sense of self has gotten so strong that we feel individual and separate, that we're these individual arms and that all we need to do is do the best for me, this arm. But if we can quiet our brains, then we'll realize that we're all a part of this giant octopus. And, the more I think we can do that and feel in the flow of that, the better overall octopus we can be. You don't want to just be this stubborn arm.

Duane Fernandez: Thank you for taking the time to check out the Smith Society, and I hope you enjoyed our conversation with Lee Sung Jin. If you did enjoy it, please take a moment to subscribe, follow, whatever it is, whatever platform you're using to listen to this. And even better, leave a comment. I'd love to know what you think. Doing those really help get this story and these stories out to more people. So, I know it's a little bit of work, but it's extremely appreciated. You can check out Lee Sung Jin on Instagram at, Be Here Later, which I think is such a clever name, and is so Lee Sung Jin. And you can find us on Instagram as well at the Smith Society pod. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. You're awesome.