Lulu Wang

In China there is a holiday around the death of your ancestors where everyone goes to the cemetery. It's a celebratory thing. It's very colorful.

My grandma, Nai Nai, has had the clothes she wants to be buried prepared since she was like 60. I guess there is an openness to discussing. It's part of life. It's part of the every day.

Whereas in America we are so fearful of mortality, we don't want to talk about it, we don't think about it, and in many ways we treat elderly people as invisible because they are a constant reminder of our own mortality. We put them away and put them in retirement homes so we don't want to deal with that.

And that meant so much to me to have my parents' support. I don't think I could have continued to push through with the first feature and the many shorts that I did without their support.

Americans always talk about family love being unconditional, and I realized that I didn't feel that way.

Sometimes America is so great because it brings all of us together, but sometimes it can be so limiting because it puts labels on things.

In some ways, every character we write, especially the protagonist, is some version of ourselves, as a writer/director, even if they aren't the same gender.

So whatever decision you make, you're going to be able to find stories or signs to say 'I did the right thing,' because we have to believe we did the right thing in order to survive.

I immigrated when I was six so I had to learn English and I was always an outsider from a young age, and so I think my drive was that I wanted to fit in.

I'm comfortable, culturally I'm American, my perspectives are American, but from an aesthetic perspective do other people look at me and think that I'm American?

Because if Asian American content is seen as a trend, the way that like leggings are in, then that's not true representation or inclusion. The mainstream doesn't have to worry about that.

We all have different aspects of ourselves, and who we are to different people in our lives, at different stages of our lives.

I don't think there's ever an inappropriate time to laugh! I'm a curious person. So if someone laughs, I want to know why.

There have been moments where I laughed at my own family's culture, though it's hard to separate out whether something funny is cultural, or just my grandma specifically.

My father's a diplomat. He speaks Russian.

Who does get to claim Americanness? You know, my brother was born in this country. And is he seen as American? So, I mean, it brings up a lot of interesting questions.

There's so little representation of people who look like me behind the camera that it makes you want to say yes to any opportunity out of desperation. It puts you in a situation where you can't make your best work. Diversity for cheap.

I didn't see myself in Jia Jhangke or Wong Kar-Wai films. Those are Asian filmmakers, and I very much am an American filmmaker.

My mother and my father are both very funny people, and they're both artistic in their own right. Oftentimes, we get very dramatic about things, but we also laugh really hard.

I drew influence from Mike Leigh, Ruben Ostlund, a lot of Scandinavian filmmakers, Lukas Moodysson. I also drew influence from horror films and thrillers, which is something I would never think to do earlier in my career.

I actually am terrified of horror movies. I'm very sensitive. But for me, I get so scared of horror movies that if I know something is coming I'll actually pause the movie and fast forward.

That's what I love - on 'The Farewell,' we played with a lot of silence and a lot of negative space, and I really worked with the composer to create those juxtapositions of like, those awkward silences and when something comes in.

My grandmother was sick and I was told that we could not tell her, and that my cousin was gonna have this wedding as an excuse for us to all go and see her. And I think that I was just so frustrated by the situation.