Ariana DeBose and Ke Huy Quan talk Oscar wins, the difficulties of shooting an action movie and their affection for one another in this exclusive interview from Parade.
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00:00No, we have worked too hard, we are on schedule, we are almost there, we are finishing this!
00:12I watched this one walk through his award season with such, I don't know, joy, like very hopeful
00:20energy, but joy and support for other people, and I think that kind of energy is infectious,
00:24so I was very emotional, like, with genuine happiness for him when his moment came,
00:32you know, because I thought it was so deserved. And the Oscar goes to...
00:38K.Y. Clark! Especially given your story, my love, but I think, I don't know, wasn't it,
00:45you told me this story about Echo. Well, I mean, I remember that night well, when you opened the
00:52envelope and announced my name with so much emotion, I was so touched, and I remember,
00:59you know, seeing you again at various events, and I always go up to you and give you a big hug and
01:04say, Ari, come on, let's do a movie together. And I was always like, yeah, let's go! So when this
01:09came and we were wondering who can play Rose, and when her name was brought up, I immediately
01:16jumped up with joy, and I said, yes, she is perfect! And I said, please, give her whatever
01:24she wants so she can say yes, you know, and thank God you said yes, and honestly, I could not have
01:29asked for a better partner, lover, partner in crime, you know? Yeah, no, I feel exactly the
01:37same. I just love, I love the mess out of this one. You know, in the beginning, when they sent
01:41me the script and I read it, I was so confused because I didn't see myself as Marvin Gable. In
01:48fact, I never saw myself as the number one on a call sheet, and honestly, I think that has to do
01:54with, you know, all those years of just, you know, auditioning for, you know, minor roles, so how can
02:01I possibly be a leading man? In fact, I was so confused, I reached out to my favorite filmmakers
02:10of all time, I reached out to Steven Spielberg, and he was so gracious with his time, and he said,
02:17hey, that sounds great! You should do it! All of a sudden, my, you know, my own internal narrative,
02:23everything that I was telling myself, started to slightly change and look at things differently,
02:30and really, and it was really then that I began to see myself as Marvin Gable,
02:36and the possibility of me leading a movie. This was the first opportunity I'd gotten to
02:44do, like, full-fledged sequences, you know? Like, I know I've appeared in Argyle, and like, I smacked
02:50somebody up in the head, but like, that's a very different thing than what we're, what I'm doing
02:54in this movie, and yes, my dance background was very helpful because to me, fight choreo,
03:00dance, it's all the dance, you know? It's the same palette, just different colors here and there.
03:05When Ari was training with our action team, and I was just watching from the side, and I remember
03:12thinking, wow, she's really good, and I went to her, I said, Ari, have you done this before?
03:16And she says, no, so I was really surprised, and I think, you know, that dancing background.
03:23Very helpful.
03:24Really comes, it's because, you know, it's, even though it's different, but it's also very similar
03:28because when you're doing these fight sequences, a lot has to do with, you know, the rhythm,
03:34the pacing. For me, I'm quite comfortable. I know these fights very well.
03:41He's a black belt!
03:42Yeah, and it was such a wonderful opportunity to be able to show, you know, show the world
03:51something that I, you know, that I've always wanted. In the very beginning, I told, you know,
03:58our producers and JoJo that if I'm going to do this, I want to do all the fights myself,
04:04and I mean, honestly, sometimes I scare myself because that was such a big statement.
04:09Mentally, I think I can do it because I think, you know, because of my background,
04:15but I haven't done it for so long, and I knew what it takes to make these fights look good,
04:23so I, you know, I trained with our guys very early on for almost three months to get myself
04:29physically ready, and even then, showing up on set and doing it is very different because,
04:37one, you know, we don't have the luxury like, you know, they have in Hong Kong where they spend a
04:43lot of resources on these fights, and this is what we were trying to aim for, to pay an homage
04:50to those, you know, to those Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung movies, and because of the time constraint,
04:57and also, you know, the crew, our crew, you know, they've never shot anything like this before,
05:04so aside from all the bruises and aches and pains, a lot of ice, a lot of ice, a lot of bath,
05:11bath, what is it, salt bath, salt bath, Tylenol, yes. It was a day where I did take a shoulder to
05:18the nose, and yeah, I remember that night, and you know, it was just, it was just a mishap,
05:26and I remember like, oh, we had one more day left of shooting. Everybody was scared, and I,
05:32it happened, I was like, oh god, oh god, oh god, I dug deep, and we continued shooting because I was
05:38like, nope, we have worked too hard, we are on schedule, we are almost there, we are finishing
05:44this. For me, it's the kitchen fight, and for that one particular shot where they slam me onto
05:51the counter before I really turn and fight back, I remember I had this thick pad on just to protect
05:57myself, and somehow every time I land, you know, the pad would show. It would just stick out of my
06:03wardrobe, and it didn't look natural, and I didn't like it, so I ripped it off. You did that without
06:09the pad? I did it with the pad, and every time we did it again, and again, and again, and you know,
06:14from different angles, and I felt a slight pain on my chest, but it was okay because I was
06:18expecting it. That's how you, that's, that's what I learned, and I didn't know the damage until the
06:23next day when I was getting ready to go, go back to set, and Echo, my wife, was standing at the
06:30doorway, and all of a sudden, she just, like, her eyes teared up, and she said, are you okay?
06:37Are you in pain? And I didn't know what she was talking about, and I looked in the mirror,
06:42and I see my entire chest was just black and blue. It was just all bruised, and that's when
06:48she went, you know, back to the, you know, to the production office and said, please order a lot of,
06:54you know, a lot of bags of salt, and, and it was that night on, you know, salt bath every night.
07:01Love Hurts brought to you by Epsom salt.