The writer and director of the new movie Booking in Theaters this Friday, The one and only 81.

What's going on, Eddie?

How are you, man?

What's good?

What's good?

Thank you for having me on the show.

Steven A It's great to have you on.

Tell me how long you've had the idea for this movie in your head.

How long has this been stewing inside of you?

I mean, I've had the idea for this film since I was 17, because, uh, I came from a family with quite a bit of domestic violence, you know, between my parents and between us, and I had nobody to talk to about it.

You know, like police would come to our house sometimes social workers, but we were never going to talk to them.

And, uh, when I was 17, I watched good will hunting with my aunt.

And even though I didn't have much in common with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, I saw how they were able to talk about the pain in their lives, domestic violence.

And I said to myself, one day, I'm going to make a movie like that that makes another kid like me feel less alien.

What were the biggest challenges in getting a studio to embrace this idea?

You talk about the Chinese American basketball player basically trying to make it?

What?

What what did it take?

How big of a challenge was it to get a studio to really embrace this idea?

It was a huge challenge.

It took me from the day the script was done and I went out to sail.

It took about 2.5 years for it to get green lit, and that was difficult because they were, like number one, who you're going to cast to play this guy.

There's not many bankable Asian American male actors, much less that can play basketball at a high level like the player in the script.

But I got I got lucky and I found Taylor Takahashi playing ball and in San Gabriel Valley.

He just walked in one day for one of my rec league games and he was nasty and I was like, You know, like you played ball where you're from.

It's like I'm from Oakland and I'm the all time leading scorer.

Alameda high school, so I got lucky with him.

Well, when you talk about you got lucky with him.

How long did you spend looking for an Asian American that can play the game?

How?

How much time did it take?

How long did you spend looking?

Well, I was following every single high school basketball player that even was being looked at and recruited anyone in Division one division to I was following their Facebook watching for years, and there were a couple that were interesting, but none that could really represent the character.

And, you know, then and then I met Taylor and and that was it.

Mm, not a rapper.

Pop Smoke was in this video in this movie.

I'm sorry.

And then ultimately, he he he passed away, Talk to me about that.

What that relationship was like and what he meant to this movie, in your estimation.

Oh, yeah.

Pop is a blessing, man.

Pop is a blessing.

And, you know, I was always a fan of above the rim.

I always loved the Friday soundtrack to I mean, I love pop.

He's my brother.

And originally, this was gonna be a more golden era boom.

BAP soundtrack because I loved how Raekwon with the purple tape, used the killer to narrate that entire album.

And I was like, Yeah, I want to give one back and use black music to narrate Asian film and complete decipher.

But when I met Papa, I just realized it's not meant to be.

Pop was taking over New York City, Brooklyn.

Drill was was on the way up, and I was like, We have to capture this moment in a bottle this man's talent, this man's spirit and it's absolutely in the film and I miss my brother.

But I know he was proud of this film, showed him his scenes, and I think we do honor to his legacy.

Man, he's the best.

I feel you on that.

Talk to me about what role hip hop and basketball played in all of this and your own identity growing up.

How much was it?

A part of you?

How much has it been A part of your life, man?

It's It's everything that I know about America came through basketball, hip hop and black culture because as Asian Americans, our culture that we bring over here is extremely alien to most Americans and they're like, Are you gonna be China, China, China, Chinese or you're gonna be white, you know, like, are you going to assimilate to whiteness?

And for some of us, that feels like a very false choice.

But with the black community, with the Latino community, you can still be Asian.

But then you can still get down with another community intersect with the trade ideas, trade, culture.

And so I just felt much more embraced by the black community black culture.

And it also helped me with the things that I found contradictory or hypocritical with Asian values and then the things my parents were doing at home.

It gave me an outlet in another community to to see a reflection of myself and talk to my friends about when you speak about things that are hypocritical.

Can you enlighten us as to what those hypocritical things were in your mind?

In terms of things that have been projected, as opposed to how things truly truly are emanating from the Asian community?

That's what you brought up.

You brought up the hypocrisy.

Could you highlight that?

What?

That is absolutely in the film boogie really deals with this at its core is that you know, our parents, our ancestors always tell us we love you.

We always love you.

But we're doing these things because we love you and like you hitting me like this because you love me, you know, and like you shatter my dreams of like being a writer or being an entertainer because you love me.

And in the end, I realized my parents do love me, and it's just a bad bet to think that your parents don't.

But, um, I really wish that our culture and our community what be a little more outward and remind I would just run my Asian parents Tell your kids you love them, man.

You know, like, I know we're worried, and we have a survivors mentality as immigrants in this country, we want our kids to succeed, but man like, it really helps a lot if you know your parents are in your corner.

So is that the message folks are gonna walk away with watching this movie boogie that debuts this Friday?

It comes out in theaters this Friday.

Is that the message that they're going to go away with you?

walk away with And if so, is that the main message, or is there a bigger message that they're going to walk away with?

Yeah, it's the main message I would say, is that whether other people love you or not, you got to love yourself and you gotta run through that wall.

But in the end, after you accomplish it, after you do it, sometimes you look back and you realize they did love me the entire time and like I'm not Christian, but it's very much like that Footsteps poem or that young buck song footsteps.

You know what I mean?

Like, you think did it alone.

But you got carried by your village by your family.

You know, it takes a village.

Once upon a time, there was a guy by the name of Jeremy Lin playing for the New York Knicks, your team and mind the New York Knicks.

Obviously.

Recently, he's a part of the G League now, and recently he spoke about the sort of anti Asian Asian racism xenophobia that he's been experiencing, and he went on social media and really highlighted highlighted that reality for him.

He even went as far as to say somebody was on the court with him and literally called him coronavirus.

That's what Jeremy Lin said.

When you hear those kind of things emanating from somebody of Asian descent, how does it hit you at this particular moment in time?

Specifically, with this movie about to come out?

Well, I can't front.

It made me laugh because you know, there are people in our community being physically attacked right now, and there's elderly being killed and like, I love the Jeremy speaking up, and I hope that people pay attention to that.

But it's like Brother, they called you coronavirus.

Go get a bucket.

That's how I feel.

That's my honest opinion.

You know, I don't know if that's politically correct, but I was like, I think we got bigger issues and also I always I love Jeremy Lin.

I love the insanity because I'm a Nick fan.

But like in the movie addresses this when he was popping, he wasn't really talking about being Taiwanese.

He was talking about He was very evangelical and like my relationship to religion, Asian community relationship to evangelical religion is complicated and I don't think he really understands a lot of the complexity of it, man, He's different, you know?

He's you know, I'm not the biggest fan.

To be honest, just keep it.

Not the biggest fan of Jeremy Lin.

You're not the biggest fan of Jeremy Lin.

Mm.

No, no, I'm gonna keep it.

100.

You know, what would you like to see from me saying?

How about, you know, I'll tell you, Steven, and I'm a big fan.

Y'all make fan.

And why is that?

And why is that explain why that is?

You know, a lot of people laughed at Yau and yeah, was very, very foreign.

I remember Charles Barkley, who was my childhood idol making fun of him.

But then, yeah, he just put his big boy pants on, and he gave it to shock that first time, you know, Shock outplayed him, but he held his own and, yeah, had a real strength about him.

Where are you know you can say anything about?

Yeah, And he showed up, and I remember one time I'm sorry.

This is a long story, but I got to go do a freelance article once.

Um and there was a moment where Rafer Alston got injured and Aaron Brooks took over and I asked ya an interview question.

I say, Hey, don't you feel like the pick and roll is a little better when you run it with Aaron Brooks because you get better spacing because he's a better three point shooter?

And, yeah, look me dead in the eye And he said, Do you really think I'm gonna say something negative about my teammate rate for Austin?

And I was like, That's all I need to know about this man.

That's the real G.

Yeah, that's totally understand.

Before I let you get on out of here, what would you like to see from a lot of us who consider ourselves allies of the Asian community?

What would you like to see from us moving forward, man?

You know, I'm very thankful to the black community for paving the way for all of us immigrants and everybody that is different in this country.

But what I would love is just a little more support within the house within the community to remind people.

Look, you may have your feeling about the way Asians are.

We may look meek.

We may look like we walk around with our head down and be scared.

But a lot of that is our pain and struggle in this country, and we humans and we're part of this and were part of the solution.

And I hope that Asians participate in America more, but also that our other allies in the black Latino, gay community feminist community, um, embrace us as well and give us a chance.

You know we're human.

Got you Boogie coming out debuting in theaters March 5th.

That's this Friday night.

Appreciate you proud of you.

Keep up the good work, man.

Keep it going.

Thank you, Stephen.

A Appreciate the time.

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