Greta Lee discusses her role in Celine Song's 'Past Lives' as part of EW's Awardist series.
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00:00 the kinds of experiences I've had,
00:02 people coming up to me and saying
00:03 that they'd just seen the movie,
00:05 people who come up to me and say,
00:06 "You know, you inspired me to break up with my boyfriend.
00:10 I guess I'm here for it all, you know?
00:12 Good luck to everybody."
00:14 (upbeat music)
00:16 I first got the script just sort of in an email
00:26 with a subject line from my agent's, "Can you speak Korean?"
00:31 And the answer is, "Yeah,"
00:33 but it wasn't at that time anything
00:36 I was considering in terms of acting.
00:38 I read the script in one sitting
00:41 and was completely destroyed.
00:43 I think in reading it, it initially reminded me
00:47 so much of the movies that first got me excited
00:50 about acting in the first place.
00:51 A movie that I was afraid wasn't going to be made anymore,
00:56 that kind of movie, and not one involving someone like me.
01:00 Movies like Richard Linklater's movies or Wong Kar Wai.
01:04 As I read, I had certain expectations
01:06 about how it would unfold.
01:08 I was just like totally bowled over by this person
01:11 who had managed to write this ridiculously gorgeous script.
01:14 And I thought, "Oh, man, someone's gonna be really lucky
01:18 to be able to do this."
01:19 And you know, good for them, good for them.
01:21 - What a good story this is.
01:26 - Childhood sweethearts who reconnect 20 years later
01:29 and realize they were meant for each other.
01:31 In the story, I would be the evil white American husband
01:34 standing in the way of destiny.
01:36 - Shut up.
01:38 He was just this kid in my head for such a long time.
01:41 I think I just missed him.
01:43 - Did he miss you?
01:44 - Haesung!
01:47 Wow, it's you.
01:53 I auditioned for it and I didn't get it.
01:55 I got a call around that time
01:57 from an assistant asking to meet.
01:59 I had assumed that it was about this movie for some reason
02:01 because of the timing.
02:02 It was like a very frantic message for Greta,
02:05 you know, "My gosh, are you confirmed or not?"
02:07 I realized that the message was for Greta Gerwig.
02:10 It was like a sign from the universe.
02:12 It was like getting punched by the universe.
02:14 It could not be clearer that it wasn't my job.
02:17 Like it felt so hilarious and absurd
02:20 that that could happen.
02:21 A year later, I got this call
02:25 that was basically like they're recasting,
02:28 they just have a different idea for the movie
02:30 and are you free essentially now?
02:32 We read through some scenes.
02:34 We read through the Skype scene,
02:37 the break scene between Nora and Haesung,
02:39 and we also read one of the bedroom scenes with Arthur.
02:42 I got to hear from her on what her vision for the movie was.
02:45 And at the end of it, she offered me the job.
02:47 I have all these pictures of me,
02:48 these selfies that I took
02:50 just 'cause I needed some sort of like tangible evidence
02:54 that that happened.
02:56 It is such an unspeakable honor.
02:59 It's funny now at this point to hear from people like,
03:02 "Oh my God, like you really struggled."
03:05 And like, "Man, like you, like what's it like?"
03:08 Like, and for me, I just feel as actors,
03:11 like you're never entitled to anything.
03:15 It's tough out there.
03:16 You have to really want it.
03:18 And that's not to say being a woman
03:21 and being a woman of color, being an Asian American actor,
03:25 there's certainly challenges and limitations,
03:28 limited opportunities because of the world that we live in.
03:32 That's absolutely true.
03:34 But I have really tried to, you know, make the best of it.
03:38 (speaking in foreign language)
03:45 (speaking in foreign language)
03:49 - Hi, nice to meet you, Arthur.
03:54 - The moment when they meet in the film,
03:56 that's actually when they're meeting in real life.
03:58 Our preparation for this involved my creating
04:03 a completely distinct and separate world with each of them.
04:07 And we would do all sorts of things.
04:09 Like Celine would ask me to talk about each of the guys
04:14 to the other guy, so that the only thing
04:17 that they would know about each other was through me.
04:20 Like I would be the conduit.
04:21 It was, you know, slightly sadistic on Celine's end,
04:25 but I mean, I can't pretend that I didn't also
04:28 somewhat enjoy myself 'cause I would, you know,
04:30 I would go over, I was asked to do this in my defense,
04:34 but I would do some days of rehearsal with Tao
04:38 and John would ask, you know, "How's it going?"
04:41 And I'd say, you know, "Wow, Tao, Tao, you."
04:43 "What an incredible performer."
04:46 Like, "What instincts, like, my God."
04:49 And Tao asking about John, likewise, you know,
04:52 just like, "How good of an actor is he?"
04:54 "He's really handsome, but like, you know, yeah."
04:56 "Wait, but was he funnier than me?"
04:58 The other piece of this was Tao and I,
05:02 we weren't allowed to make any physical contact
05:05 up until the scene where we're reunited.
05:08 Celine was interested in this idea
05:09 of just not letting us touch.
05:11 And we looked at all kinds of things
05:14 to get ready for that day in terms of physicality.
05:17 It's really about the physicality of falling in love.
05:20 We watched Korean dating shows,
05:22 like Miss Connection dating shows,
05:24 and it's so fascinating because we have this idea
05:27 in our heads that the act of falling in love
05:29 is like this beautiful, gorgeous thing,
05:32 but it's actually incredibly humiliating.
05:34 It's possibly the most vulnerable experience
05:37 your body can undergo.
05:39 I remember I was watching this Korean dating show
05:42 where the childhood sweethearts were reconnected,
05:45 much like the movie,
05:46 and the woman, it was 10 different emotions.
05:50 I mean, the initial, the shock, horror, grief,
05:55 embarrassment, it is so fascinating.
05:58 So anyways, we had that in the back of our minds that day,
06:01 and hopefully it amounted to a pretty nice hug, I guess.
06:05 [car engine revving]
06:08 The way that last scene was shot
06:17 was a single tracking shot.
06:19 We were shooting on a 35 millimeter.
06:22 That urgency when you have, you know,
06:24 when you're thinking like, okay,
06:26 this reel is 11 minutes, here we go.
06:29 But we shot it in one tracking shot,
06:32 saying goodbye to Hyejeong with the Uber arriving,
06:34 and then Nora walking alone,
06:36 and starting to cry, and reuniting with her husband.
06:39 The process of doing it, I will never forget.
06:42 It will go down in the books for me
06:44 as one of the most, I mean,
06:47 truly special things I've gotten to do.
06:49 But, you know, practically speaking,
06:51 it's Z's village in the middle of the night.
06:53 It really did feel like bungee jumping.
06:55 Like we knew, you know,
06:57 where we, what marks we were supposed to hit roughly.
07:00 We were given roughly an idea of like,
07:03 then you walk together and you stand right there,
07:06 and maybe at some point you turn towards each other,
07:09 and then a car's gonna come, and that's it.
07:11 I'm not on social media,
07:31 but I can tell you in person, IRL,
07:34 the kinds of experiences I've had.
07:37 People coming up to me and saying
07:39 that they've just seen the movie.
07:40 All kinds of people.
07:42 I mean, young people, old people.
07:44 I've heard about a lot of long walks after seeing the movie.
07:49 Couples who have been married for a long time,
07:53 sort of reflecting and reassessing
07:55 different things about their lives.
07:57 People who are dating.
07:58 There are all sorts of experiences,
08:00 and that's what I love so much.
08:02 People can get something so different out of it.
08:07 People who come up to me and say,
08:08 "You know, you inspired me to break up with my boyfriend."
08:13 I guess I'm here for it all, you know?
08:15 Good luck to everybody.
08:17 (whooshing)