Destin Daniel Cretton And Daniel Wu Discuss The Representation And Mythology Of American Born Chinese - Exclusive Interview

It's hard to believe that Disney+ has only been out for a few years, given the hefty number of shows and movies the platform has launched. Between the MCU, "Star Wars," and original new projects, Disney has plenty to work with. But now, the streamer is diving into the Asian American experience with the upcoming series "American Born Chinese." 

From the creative team to the cast, the story is told from lived experiences, adding a level of authenticity at all levels. "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" writer and director Destin Daniel Cretton is an executive producer as well as a director on "American Born Chinese." He's also slated to helm "Avengers: The Kang Dynasty" and a "Shang-Chi" sequel.

Meanwhile, Daniel Wu takes on the iconic and mythological role of the Monkey King. Wu has appeared in movies like 2018's "Tomb Raider" and 2016's "Warcraft," along with series like "Into the Badlands" and "Westworld."

Disney invited Looper to New York Comic Con last year, where we got the opportunity to exclusively sit down with Wu and Cretton to discuss the impact of the show's representation and mythology and what it was like for Cretton to dive into this series after "Shang-Chi" and reconnect with a few actors from the MCU project. He also named the "Shang-Chi" star who isn't in "American Born Chinese" whom he'd love to see on the show. 

Daniel, you play a pretty epic mythological character. How much research did you do for this role? And what has the process been like to transform you into this very intense aesthetic?

Daniel Wu: The Monkey King is super iconic. I've seen literally hundreds of versions of the "Journey to the West" story because in Asian culture, it is prevalent everywhere. It's [in] TV, comics, cartoons, movies. Almost every actor I've known [has played] the Monkey King at some point. I've been asked to play the Monkey King many times in my career in Asia, but I never did it because I always felt that there was nothing I could bring new into the story, especially to the "Journey to the West" story, because everyone knows it so well.

But this one with "American Born Chinese" is a new take on the character because although we flash back to the younger version of himself, we're seeing an older version of himself as [a] father — this older, wiser, maybe more stoic version of the Monkey King — which I'd never seen before in any writing or versions of the story.

It was really interesting because I'm at a time in my life where I'm a father, and I have a daughter who's 9 years old. I have lots of expectations. I'm still Asian, so I still have a lot of very strict expectations [for] my daughter. I'm going through a time in my life where I'm feeling those same feelings. I was able to bring a lot of those feelings to the character and the relationship between Monkey King and Jimmy's character, the younger Monkey King, or the younger monkey, and how he sees elements of his younger self in his son, and he doesn't like it.

At the same time, he can't deny that he was that way too. So he's struggling with this idea of, "Do I let him grow on his own, or do I try to form him?" I'm actually dealing with that in my life, too, right now.

Also, my father was very sick while we were making this, and he passed away in the middle of it, so it brought back lots of memories of how my father wanted me to be when I was growing up. It was a lot of combinations of things in my personal life that informed me of how to play this character.