Stephanie Hsu Is Ready to Keep Hollywood Guessing

"It takes really smart people to make humor that is so stupid. It's not easy to do that."

What's next after earning an Oscar nomination in a film that swept the Academy Awards? For Stephanie Hsu, with success in Everything Everywhere All at Once in hand, she's keeping Hollywood guessing. She's starting with Joy Ride (July 7), a debaucherous comedy about four friends who travel through Asia to find one of their birth mothers while also getting into all kinds of trouble. "When I read it, I just felt, 'Wow, that sounds like so much fun. What an amazing opportunity to just be completely unhinged.'" She plays Kat, an aspiring actress. "I wanted to make sure she wasn't just a pretty face.... It was fun to just be totally ridiculous and kind of mean." The ridiculous part is what's most exciting for Hsu, because "we've seen men do it time and again," but this time women are in on the action. As for how the Oscar nomination impacted her career, Hsu, while grateful, takes a more balanced view of her future. "Even though I do believe that there has to be different ways of measuring success and worth, no question that that nomination and the movie changed my life."

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Has it sunk in that you're an Oscar-nominated actress?

Absolutely not. Memorial Day weekend was the first time I was like, did I go [to the Oscars]? It's been a whirlwind, but I definitely feel so lucky. It's been a fun ride.

How did Joy Ride come your way?

The thing about me, let me tell you, I really feel like I fall into synchronistic pathways and that is oftentimes how projects come to me. I shot an episode of Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, and that episode was directed by the Daniels [Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, directors of Everything Everywhere All at Once], which is actually how I met the Daniels. And Teresa Hsiao, one of the writers for Joy Ride, is also the executive producer of that show. So I met her on my episode and she pulled me aside on set and was like, "Hey, I'm working on a really debauchery comedy, and I think it would be really great for you. So just keep your eyes peeled." So I subsequently followed the Daniels out to L.A., and then Joy Ride, as well. And that's kind of all how it came into my orbit. It got postponed for a little bit because of COVID. They were casting it during COVID. So we did all the casting process [on Zoom], chemistry reads, everything.

I can't imagine doing a chemistry read on Zoom.

Well, luckily Ashley Park [who plays Audrey in the film] and I know each other from the world of theater. We have worked together on workshops and readings before, but we have never done a full production. So I've known Ashley for a really long time. And then, in that first week that I had moved out to L.A., when I followed the Daniels but right before Everything Everywhere happened, Sherry Cola [who plays Lolo in the film] actually ran into me on the street and she had just seen my Nora from Queens episode. She introduced herself—I always say Sherry was my first friend in L.A.—and she pulled me aside and she was like, "You're dope. I'm hosting this Asian females in Hollywood dim sum tomorrow. Do you want to come?" So she invited me to this lunch and I sort of got introduced to the community in Los Angeles. And Sabrina [Wu, who plays Deadeye in the film] I didn't know but the moment I met them on Zoom, I was like, "Who is that that person, they should cast them immediately. And that person needs to be my best friend." So luckily, in the chemistry process, I knew two out of the four already. I guess I know myself too. So we'll call it the three out of the four. [laughs]

Your character is definitely different from what we've seen from you thus far. What did you relate to about the character?

Well, it's funny, so they have me originally reading for the character of Lolo. I remember reading the script with Lolo in mind, but I read it and I immediately was like, "I know this woman named Sherry Cola, she is Lolo, but okay, I'll give it a try." And they ended up casting Ashley and Sherry first, but they said they really want to find a way in the movie for you. And they want you to read for Kat. My first thought when I read Kat, because of how it had been pitched to me and how it's described on the page, she's an aspiring TV star or movie star. In my mind, pre this past year, I had an association in my mind of what that character would look like and who would typically be cast. And I thought to myself, "Well, I would never play a movie star or a TV star, I would never play like an actress in that way." But I really wanted to work with them so I had to find my way in. And don't get me wrong, I think I'm beautiful, I just don't think I'm traditionally Hollywood beautiful. So I had to allow myself to find a way to care about appearances that easily. And I found it to be quite liberating, actually. I wanted to make sure she wasn't just a pretty face. It was important to me that if this is gonna be four friends, that if she's that type of character, she can't just be nice to look at and then unfunny. So I think because I felt like not stereotypically Hollywood beautiful, I had to find a way to make her insane. It was fun. I mean, I don't care about brands in the way that Kat says, but I found it to be actually quite liberating to be version of an actress who is so consumed with that measure of success and that way of being, because she's trying to hide something, you know? So it was fun to just be totally ridiculous and kind of mean.

I also love how sexually liberated the characters are. Was that something that stood out to you?

Absolutely. I wouldn't even say that it stood out to me as necessarily important. When I read it, I just felt, wow, that sounds like so much fun. And it's so freeing and what an amazing opportunity to just be completely unhinged and let it all hang out. And, of course, I am cognizant of all the stereotypes and the ways in which people are either hyper sexualized, or under sexualized and the assignment of a rated R hard comedy. We've seen men do it time and time again, so it always feels exciting [that] we get an opportunity.

Not giving anything away, but the hotel moment was just explosive in all sorts of ways.

So perfect. And it feels good getting to see it with an audience. I feel like I am on the campaign trail for bringing the Hollywood studio comedy back. It feels so good to laugh, and we need it. We just need that type of joy. Someone said to me, it takes really smart people to make humor that is so stupid. It's not easy to do that.

You're so right. Like, Bridesmaids was 10 years ago and I feel like there hasn't been many really wild comedies since then. Perhaps Girls Trip.

Yeah, I'm excited. We'll see how it does. But so far, everyone's been responding so well to it.

There's a very important K-pop scene that's pivotal to the story. What was it like filming it?

Yeah, it was super fun. We were filming Monday through Friday and on Saturday we would have dance rehearsals. And it also was really important. We got permission from Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion [to use their song]. We wrote them a beautiful letter about how their song and how their music just lifted up women and the sexual freedom and empowerment of women, and that we wanted to tip our hat to them and embody it in in our movie. Which it's so much about that, right? It's about reclaiming that and turning it on its head. So they gave us their blessing. And we would kind of write little lyrics. We'd like to call them group projects, which really means the core four [of us] will sort of squirrel away and we'll readjust. Sabrina has a lot of secret talents like beatboxing, so we kind of built it around that as well. But it was really fun and really ridiculous. I mean, honestly, I think the most fun part about filming the music video was when we had 30 minutes left one day, and they just put us out in front of a green screen and then we did weird things like dribble a basketball or I did a little dance move. That is when filming a comedy becomes really fun because it's just so excessive and random.

How much traveling did you guys really do?

We shot everything in Vancouver. So originally we talked about shooting in Asia, but then when COVID happened, we had to regroup. And so we shot everything in Vancouver, literally everything. And it's also one of my favorite places in the whole world.

Considering the Oscar nomination and all the success you've had, how has it changed the direction of your career?

Yeah, last year was wild. I do live under a rock, by choice, just to protect my soft center from the wrath of the internet. But I do know that people were really rallying and championing things. I will never forget, beat by beat, every moment of awards season. I feel like not getting a Golden Globe nomination, but then the next morning waking up to a SAG nomination, and then a New York Times piece that I feel like was just totally—journalism is meant to be objective, but it felt like a gentle nudge for me. And I do think so many people within the film industry, and just the community in general, really rallied behind me, which meant a lot. It's funny now because we swept the Oscars and we won Best Picture, but we came out in March and no one knew if that was going to be in the cards for us. That was such a long journey. So I remember, at every point along the way, including Ke [Huy Quan], including Michelle [Yeoh], including Jamie [Lee Curtis], we were like the little engine that could, it just kept growing and growing and growing. I remember feeling like we got spit out with the big leagues all of a sudden. I just feel grateful. Even though I do believe that there has to be different ways of measuring success and measuring worth, no question that that nomination and the movie changed my life. The industry does care about these things, and I think it gives people a peace of mind or value to their names that I get to now be a person who can help greenlight projects, whereas even after the movie came out, even though people were so excited about me, it's almost like I didn't solidify my place in this community. We like to joke that for two to three years, I have a little paw print on the ground. I think the most exciting things that have come out of it is just the opportunity to start developing my own projects and for people to genuinely galvanize behind that and get excited about that, because they know there's a shot, and it might actually get made. So that's been my new focus. And I've been fortunate enough to have a few other projects under my belt that will be coming out. But I'm really trying to home in and exercise the muscles of developing my own stories and I'm pushing that boulder up the hill. Because that is so satisfying. That's real longevity in the industry, if you can start to tell your own stories, make your own work and bring us the people that you want to bring along the way.

I've also just always loved what you represented. You're never the same in any of your projects. It's like what you said before about being unconventionally beautiful for Hollywood standards, we need more beautiful weirdos.

Thank you. I love the weirdos. I am a weirdo. I've always been a cool weirdo, but I think from an artistic point of view, too, I feel that sometimes we can be so afraid to stretch outside the box. And what I love to do more than anything is to find ways to imagine differently and to stretch ourselves artistically in a different way. And the gift of Everything Everywhere was that it felt like a perfect place for me to get to offer what I value as an artist. So now that sort of sets a tone or a standard that people aren't surprised by characters like Kat in Joy Ride come along, or Morty in Poker Face. It's just like, oh, okay, Stephanie just likes to keep them guessing and try different things every time. So, I love it. I like doing things that people have never seen before, you know?

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