Director Alex Woo and Producer Tim Hahn sit down with GoldSea to chat about AAPI representation, imagination, and wacky conspiracy theories in their new animated comedy feature”In Your Dreams” hitting Netflix on November 14.
Romen Borsellino:
Hi, I am Romen Borsellino with Gold Sea Media.
Alex Woo:
Hey, Romen. Hi. To meet you.
Romen Borsellino:
Hey, nice to meet both of you too. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Alex Woo:
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Romen Borsellino:
Of course I saw the movie, I loved it. It was funny, it was beautiful, it was heartfelt. From the moment the very squeaky pacifiers hit the ground at the beginning, I was like, I’m in for a ride here.
Alex Woo:
Awesome. I’m so glad you liked it.
Romen Borsellino:
So I’m with Gold Sea Media. We’re an AAPI Daily. So the first thing, of course, I want to know is about your guys’ own AAPI identities and how that might have influenced the making of this film.
Alex Woo:
Yeah. You want to start?
Tim Hahn:
Well, I’m Korean American, born and raised in LA, and then moved up to the Bay where I met Alex.
Alex Woo:
I’m Chinese American. I grew up half my life in Minnesota and half my life in Hong Kong. Yeah, the influence of, I think my sort of Asian and ethnic heritage has a lot to do with like, I think the cultural heritage of being Asian, being Asian American, having a lot of pressure put on me to be perfect.
And that’s very much what this film is about and what it explores. I feel like not just in the Asian and American community, but I think just at large in America, there is so much pressure on people, especially kids to be perfect, to make their dreams come true. And I think at some level, that’s healthy because it’s what makes America so exceptional as a country and as a culture.
But there’s a dark side to it, because I think people can get lost in that pursuit of perfection and lost in that dream about the pursuit of those dreams. And you can kind of neglect every other aspect of your life. And the other dark side is when you don’t achieve your dreams, you feel like something’s wrong with you, that you failed and that you’re not living life to its fullest. And I just don’t think that’s true. So with this film, I really tried to sort of flip the charge on dreams and nightmares.
With nightmares, I think a lot of times the things that have happened in my life that have shaped me the most and helped me grow the most and actually strengthen the bonds of all my relationships is when I’m, my life seems like it’s at its worst. I’m in the lowest moment of life.
And, you know, my friends, my family, they come out and they help me get through that messiness and that imperfection. And so I think nightmares have a really positive function in life. And so I, yeah what I tried to do with this one was really flip the charge on those two concepts and those two ideas.
Romen Borsellino:
I appreciate that. That is very thoughtful. Tim, did you want to weigh in on that? Not that you have to, but
Tim Hahn:
I think I mirror those sentiments definitely. I think, you know, it’s not true for all Asian American families, but I think for me, in my own experience, definitely there was a, I identify with Stevie as a fixer, as a perfectionist. I love that shot in the beginning with the one B+ on the report card and it’s like, fix this, you know? And I think not necessarily directly tied to my Asian American heritage.
I appreciate also the subtle story within the film around like the parents choosing between kind of following your dreams and maybe being more practical. Because that’s definitely, you know, conversations I’ve had with my parents in pursuing this career that I’ve chosen. So I think that’s another example of how our backgrounds are kind of part of the environment of this film.
Romen Borsellino:
Totally. Well, I am a younger sibling, so I definitely identified more with Elliot.
Alex Woo:
Well you definitely have Elliot’s hair.
Tim Hahn:
Alex and I are both olders and we’re both definitely.
Romen Borsellino:
Yeah, I don’t know that I left any baloney on the floor, but I’m sure there were moments where my older brother would have wondered, given the opportunity to make it just me and the parents, I should take that one. But I’m sure, you know, I’m sure he would have done the right thing in the end. I mean, you know, on that topic of identity, it’s interesting because at first, you know, I heard about the movie and it was like, it stars Simu Liu and you guys are involved an a part of me was like, “great, this new Asian movie is coming out.”
And then, you didn’t jam any identity down anyone’s throats. And even in asking the question about identity, I felt admittedly a little hesitant because, you know, I’m not necessarily gonna go into an interview with other filmmakers, Ron Howard and Spielberg, and immediately ask them about identity.
Do you guys, how do you feel about that sort of push and pull of wanting to represent your identity, also just wanting to make a film and not having to give a darn about, you know, lifting up an entire community or whatever responsibility that might come with?
Alex Woo:
Yeah, I mean, it was very deliberate.I mean, think we, obviously representation is really important to both of us, but I think there’s different types of representation and there’s some that a lot of films, the characters that are featured, their issues are about their identity and their otherness and finding their place in that world. And I love those stories and I think there’s a place for those stories.
I also think that there’s a place for stories where it features minority characters and that that’s not what their life is about. I think that oftentimes that can just be kind of narrowing for characters of a certain ethnic background that the only stories we can tell with them is about their ethnic identity and their heritage. And I just think for me as you know growing up, because I spent half my life in Asia and half my life in the States. I didn’t always think about my ethnic identity. It wasn’t at the forefront of my mind, it wasn’t always the main issue I was dealing with. And so for this film, I really wanted, you know, to deal with the more universal theme of like imperfection and imperfect people and imperfect families. And that’s a universal thing because nobody is perfect. It doesn’t matter what your cultural heritage is. And so I thought that there was something really empowering about featuring characters that, you know, are from a different sort of minority background.
And not making it the issue at the forefront of their lives. If you were to watch a movie about a white American character, there rarely is their issue about their ethnic identity. And so when you do that with a minority character, in a way it’s normalizing, it’s empowering that there’s other aspects to these types of characters other than just who they are ethnically and culturally.
Tim Hahn:
I think it’s really about this idea of kind of redefining what is default, right? And I think this family is having an experience that I think many families universally can recognize, see themselves in, get something out of, but also, you know, like that representation as a redefining of what’s default, it’s just a beautiful way to make it feel more grounded and authentic.
Romen Borsellino:
Well, I appreciate that. I strongly identified with this film, but not necessarily because I’m Asian, but because I’m Midwestern, right? I was like, that knockoff Chuck E. Cheese they’re dining at, that cute little house on the street, the dad rocking the Minnesota Viking shirt. was like, this is cut and copied out of my own childhood. Again, not the Indian American part, but the cute little Midwestern town. I’m not surprised that you said you were from Minnesota. I immediately clocked that. I was like, the filmmakers were definitely from the Midwest.
Alex Woo:
Yeah, which part of the Midwest are you from?
Romen Borsellino:
Des Moines, Iowa.
Alex Woo:
Okay, yeah, I mean, it’s very similar to Minnesota.
Romen Borsellino:
And our neighbors to the north, constantly fight over Minnesota versus NICE versus Iowa NICE and who really gets to claim that. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, I don’t want to hurt your feelings with that.
Alex Woo:
They fight in the nicest way possible.
Romen Borsellino:
“But sorry, we’re actually the nicer one.”
Romen Borsellino:
I have something in common with you too, Tim. I went to Amherst College.
Tim Hahn:
Whoa! No way.
Romen Borsellino:
My freshman roommate was in the same comedy troupe as you, Mr. Gads.
Tim Hahn:
Oh, Mr. Gads. Nice.
Romen Borsellino
But sorry, back to the topic.
Tim Hahn:
I would talk about what we do for an hour, but
Romen Borsellino:
You guys founded Kuku Studios. It was the two of you and Stanley Moore, right? You three are the founders.
So, have you made Stanley the token white guy in the office? Like in the way that normally as an AAPI, like we become the tokens, have you put all of that onto him? And is it constantly like this? Like he wasn’t invited to this because I wanted to talk to two Asian Americans. Please send my apologies. He did great work
Tim Hahn:
He is like my, he’s my go-to polling service.
Alex Woo:
Yeah, no, we think we try not to make them feel bad about being white.
Romen Borsellino:
That’s very kind of you guys.
Alex Woo:
No, we started the company together. Yeah, I mean, we didn’t really, again, I didn’t think about what our sort of ethnic background was. I tried to find people that I had chemistry with, creative chemistry with, that I really trusted, that I had really good relationships with. And yeah, mean, you know, who they were ethnically and culturally, wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a factor.
Tim Hahn:
I mean, on this kind of topic of like representation and the power of diversity and like crafting stories. Something that’s kind of fun is I feel like if you draw our hometowns on the map of the US we represent, like he’s all the way from like Miami, Florida. I’m from Southern California. You’re from the Midwest. So we got this like great triangle between us where we really can, I mean, I hope we bring together all the different tastes and stories and lived experiences from these different parts of the country and all of our different backgrounds.
Romen Borsellino:
And that’s real diversity right there. I mean, it could be all AAPIers, but we could all happen to come from the same part of San Francisco or you know, Devon Avenue in Chicago, Little India over there.
Alex Woo:
Yeah, that’s sort of the perspective is all — there’s no diversity at all. So yeah.
Romen Borsellino:
I totally feel you. That was when, I was the token Indian growing up in Iowa. And then I got to Amherst and no one cared that I was South Asian. People couldn’t believe I was from Iowa. That was what made me unique.I was like, that’s unique to you guys?
Alex Woo:
You’re the token I win.
Romen Borsellino:
Yeah, exactly. Everyone needs to have at least one.
I mentioned the pacifiers falling from the sky, the baloney, the crazy stuff. I don’t even know how you would begin coming up with the things that appear in dreams. what were your like, I’ll start with you Alex, what were your like wildest, craziest imaginations that you came up with? Tim, did you ever have to talk him back from the ledge? We like, that’s too crazy, we’re not putting that even in a dream?
Tim Hahn:
I mean, definitely the imagination was wild enough where I would get a little stressed out. Can we actually pull this off technically in the budget? I can’t, nothing comes to mind that’s like “no, that’s not allowed.”
Alex Woo:
Yeah, I mean, I think for me, obviously, you know, making a movie in the dream world is so exciting because anything can happen in dreams, especially when it’s an animated film, you can do anything. And so there’s almost like paralysis with too much, too much optionality. Right. And so you, I really had to find a way to ground it.
And the way I did that was twofold. was one, I wanted to make sure that all the dreams were somehow rooted in real life experience. So whether the dreams came from my life or from Tim’s or from our story teams or from Eric’s or Stanley’s life, I wanted every single dream in there to have been something that somebody experienced on our team. The other aspect was to make sure that the experience of dreaming felt true to the real life experience of dreaming.
You know, when I, when I dream, it’s usually things that happened to me during the day, right? People, places, things that I encountered during the day end up in my dreams at night. And I think that’s the –– that your brain is trying to process all the things that happened to you during the day. And so I wanted to make sure that with Stevie and Elliot, every dreamscape they entered was somehow set up in the real world. And so that became the grounding force, and the constraint that, you know, really sort of liberated me and my team to come up with all these dreams.
So like breakfast town, for example, you know, when I was a kid, my mom used to make French toast for us every Sunday morning. And so that was like our family breakfast time. And I have such fond memories of that. You know, food is so connected to memories and emotions and it really, you know, that made me feel like it was, that made me feel like family, you know?
And so, with our film in the opening, Stevie’s making French toast, she’s making breakfast with her family, and that represents family to her, represents a perfect time in her family. And so when she dreams, she goes off into this adventure, of course, she’s going to be in a dream world filled with breakfast food, because that’s what represents family to her. So there was always like a logic to every sort of dreamscape that we created. I think
Roman Borsellino:
Did you consult like dream specialists on this?
Alex Woo:
No, but I did read some books. read, why we sleep by Matthew Walker. I think that’s the name of the title, or the book. And, yeah, it was, you know, what’s so amazing about dreams is that we still don’t know why we dream like, you know, neurologists and, and, and, cognitive scientists, they still have to be trying to figure it out, right? They can kind of understand the mechanics, right? Like if synapses firing, but they still don’t know what the purpose of function of it is.
They just know that when you don’t dream, we notice that you have problems like sort of processing memories and emotions, but why they still don’t know. And so that’s great fodder for like fiction and mythology and storytelling. So that’s why I was so excited to tell a story in this space and in this world.
Tim Hahn:
And then I think all of that is to encourage like watching the movie again, to catch the details of the ways in which our incredibly talented story team, Eric, Stanley and Alex, like seated in the real world, things that pay off in big but also very subtle ways too in the dreams.
Romen Borsellino:
I will definitely be watching it again, so I appreciate that with friends and family.
Okay, the whole movie was funny, but there was one moment where I was just watching it by myself. was laughing, truly laughing out loud at it. And I don’t want to give too much away, but it was about a character sharing a certain conspiracy theory about maybe butterflies actually being government drones. And I just thought that was the funniest thing. And then my next thought was, is that something these guys believe?
Is that born out of personal experience or are there any other crazy conspiracy theories either of you would like to share right now?
Tim Hahn:
I bet Eric believes it.
Alex Woo:
Yeah, probably. So that was Eric Benson, our co-director and co-writer. It was his line and his idea. And when he told everyone we were like you, we just like couldn’t stop laughing. We’re like, that is so ridiculous. It’s so funny. I don’t know if you noticed, but when we cross dissolve to the prologue.
Romen Borsellino:
Yeah. It’s a butterfly.
Alex Woo:
I don’t know if you noticed.
Romen Borsellino:
Trust me, I noticed.
Alex Woo:
Okay, good. Well not many people notice that, so you are very astute
Tim Hahn:
Very astute
Romen Borsellino:
The payoff was big. I was like, “oh hell yeah.” Totally worth it. Rest assured, if I am the only person who noticed it, was still worth it. It was that great.
And then really the last question I wanted to ask you guys. And first of all, I know you won some Emmys on your Netflix children’s series, Go Go, Cory Carson. Congratulations.
So you’ve already gotten some hardware aside from the obvious like bringing home an Academy Award and getting huge streaming numbers. You know, what in your minds would classify this film as a success?
Alex Woo:
I mean, those are the obvious ones, but I think more than anything, even with Go Go Cory Carson, what means the most to me as a filmmaker is when audience members reach out to us because they are so moved or touched or entertained by the work that we do. And we still get emails, we get letters, fan mail from kids, from parents telling us how much they love that show.
And so I think, you know, if we are able to do the same thing with this film, With “In Your Dreams,” I think that would be, you know, my definition of success. It probably would mean more to me than any of the hardware, you know, the Academy Awards, the, you know, the streaming numbers. Obviously those things would be fantastic, but you really want to, you know, the reason you the reason I make these things, I tell these stories and I make these films is I really want to connect with people and I want to touch them in a certain way.
And so that is really the goal, right? It’s like,I feel like filmmaking is like cooking, right? Like you cook because you want to nourish people. You want to like, it’s a way to, it’s like a vessel for love. Like how can I love you in a really non-creepy, like tangible way.
And you don’t do it because you want to win the James Beard award. You want to get Michelin rated stars. I mean, of course that’s nice, but the core purpose is I want to find a way to, like, love people through these, through this medium. And so that is, would be my definition of success.
Romen Borsellino:
I for one felt loved, Alex. So mission accomplished.
Alex Woo:
I, yeah, we love you, Romen
Romen Borsellino:
Thank you, thank you.
Tim Hahn:
We’re fellow Amherst College grads
Romen Borsellino:
Exactly.
Tim Hahn:
So we’re connected for sure.
Romen Borsellino:
Well, great. Thank you guys so much. It was really great talking to you.
Alex Woo:
Great talking to you, and this was one of the best interviews we’ve had today, so thank you.
Romen Borsellino:
Thank you so much, that means a lot.
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