Actor Constance Wu is back on the big screen with her first role in three years.
Wu stars alongside Naomi Watts and Bill Murray in “The Friend,” a feel-good dramedy about a writer who adopts a Great Dane that belonged to her late friend and mentor. The movie will be out in theaters on March 28.
It’s a lighter role, but she’s also sharing some heavier thoughts.
The “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Fresh Off the Boat” star said she’s worried about potentially “repressive and backward” steps related to diversity in Hollywood amid all the larger national rollbacks of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
“I have noticed that with recent TV and movies I’ve seen, representation is a little less important when it comes to casting,” Wu said. “This could be good in terms of focusing on story and characters, [but] it could be bad in terms of people reverting to limited imaginations of what story and characters could be.”
She said she specifically questions the idea of “authenticity” as a reason to sidestep diversity.
“What does authenticity mean? It means the truth, and if you’re really an artist then you can find the truth in any circumstance, any character, any face or any article of clothing. How much do you want to challenge yourself? Sometimes people don’t like to be challenged,” she said.
The latest annual UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report showed that the white share of all film roles increased from almost 60% in 2023 to 67% the next year, while other race groups and ethnicities were still underrepresented. For example, Asians make up only 5.5% and Latinos 3.6%.
This trend is further reflected in other aspects of Hollywood, as only 1 in 10 theatrical film writers are people of color and only 2 in 10 theatrical film directors are people of color.
Wu made her Hollywood breakthrough with the 2018 rom-com “Crazy Rich Asians,” which grossed $239 million at the box office worldwide. The success of the movie ushered in a new wave of stars and representation, making the way for movies such as “Past Lives,” “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and “Minari.”
“At its best, [these initiatives] are about expanding imagination, creativity and possibility,” Wu said. “But, If you are stodgy and stuck in your ways, as a director, you’re limiting yourself. If you think it’s just about trying to check off a box, that’s not what it’s supposed to be and not what it should be,” she said about onscreen diversity.
Alongside acting, Wu has another job as the mother of two young children. The actress compared motherhood to the golden triangle of productivity — fast, cheap and good, and says you can only have two. Her version, she jokes, is the “golden triangle of motherhood”: clean house, personal sanity and happy and healthy kids — and again, you can only have two.
“I really like having a clean house and I like having happy and healthy children, so personal sanity goes out the window. This production triangle goes out the window if you’re a man with a wife but, for mothers, even if you have a husband or help, that triangle is real,” Wu said.
