From Crazy Rich Asians to Wicked: Why Director Jon M. Chu Says Identity Is Hollywood's Next Blockbuster

It’s a familiar story, especially if you’ve spent your life navigating two worlds: the pressure to achieve success in the American system, often by subtly downplaying the parts of yourself that make you different. For years, we’ve heard that message loud and clear. Blend in. Fit in.

That’s why listening to director Jon M. Chu talk about his career is so fascinating. The guy who gave us Crazy Rich Asians is now bringing Wicked (with the sequel Wicked: For Good coming out on November 21) to the screen, and his perspective, captured in a recent NBC News interview, speaks directly to the moment when an individual stops minimizing their heritage and realizes it’s their superpower.

Chu was already a successful Hollywood director, hitting the requisite "10,000 hours" behind the camera and feeling comfortable alongside industry heavyweights. But then, he says, came a critical question: “What is the movie that I can only make? What’s the thing that scares me the most? And the thing that scared me the most was my cultural identity crisis, talking about being an Asian American.”

In a moment of vulnerability, Chu admitted that the thing he’d been trained to suppress for most of his life, his Chinese cultural background, was the one story he was uniquely qualified to tell. He shared the very real fear that if he focused on Asian American stories, he would be boxed in, going against the lesson his parents instilled: keep that value quiet so you can fit in.

But Chu made the radical choice to embrace that fear. That decision gave us Crazy Rich Asians. He didn't see it as just a romantic comedy, but as a story about self-worth with a character who was finally figuring out her identity as "both American and Asian."

Chu takes a pragmatic view of the film’s success, explaining that it wasn't meant to be the end-all for the Asian American community. It was more like a proof-of-concept for the industry. “I think Crazy Rich Asians was great, because it cracked the door open. It showed a path for the other people who need to invest money in this. I’m not sure it was for us. I think it was for everyone else to say, ‘oh, these actors have value.’”

But now, Chu argues, the responsibility shifts. He says that the door is cracked, and now it is "all of our turns to own our stories and tell every version of our story we could, so that nothing was dependent on just one movie.” He cautions that cultural change takes time, but his message is ultimately a call to action for all creators: stop waiting for permission, stop having the endless debate about representation, and simply, forcefully: “Just do it and prove it.”

Photo by Bea Phi/Wikimedia Commons