'In the Heights' director Jon M. Chu on his personal and career breakthroughs: 'I'm no longer scared of being called an Asian-American director'

For the latest episode of Yahoo Entertainment's Game Changers series, director Jon M. Chu discussed his new film, In the Heights, how it's a spiritual sequel of sorts to Crazy Rich Asians, and when he realized that he was "part of the problem" when it came to Hollywood embracing diverse and representative projects.

Watch the full interview above.

Video Transcript

JON M CHU: I'm no longer scared of being called an Asian-American director. I'm like, hell yeah I am Asian-American director, so let's go.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

- On these blocks you can't walk two steps without bumping into someone's big plan.

- (SINGING) I'm making moves, I'm making deals, but guess what?

- What?

- (SINGING) You still ain't got no skills.

KEVIN POLOWY: So, from what I understand, "In the Heights" was long in the works. I know Kenny Ortega was originally going to direct it like a decade ago. How long were you involved and how much were you and Lin-Manuel Miranda sort of talking throughout that process and figuring out if you're the right guy for the job?

JON M CHU: At the same time that I was about to do "Crazy Rich Asians," I signed up for "In The Heights." It was that a moment where I didn't know who I was as a filmmaker. I had spent 10 years making movies, but not exactly knowing what I wanted to say with this. And so, I took my time and found two things that I love so much.

And "In the Heights" was something that I had seen on Broadway and spoke so true to me, even though I'm not from Washington Heights, even though I'm not Latino. I grew up in a Chinese restaurant in Northern California. I knew what it felt like to be raised by aunties and uncles who were-- I was first generation born here. I knew what it felt like to-- who my Abuela Claudia was, my Boo Boo, who we made wontons on the kitchen table with, so it just spoke to me.

KEVIN POLOWY: I was going to ask you, sort of, how you related to uptown-- to the Uptown New Yorkers portrayed here, but it sounds like pretty deeply.

JON M CHU: Totally. I mean, so deeply that I named my son Heights, who was born during the production.

KEVIN POLOWY: Really?

JON M CHU: I just loved the idea of community and family and dreamers that I'd met there of you can dream beyond your walls and beyond the horizon. I wanted to say that word every day of my life, and I wanted him to hear that word every day of his life.

KEVIN POLOWY: You talk about your personal connection to this. I want to talk about the connective tissues between your work a little bit. "Crazy Rich Asians" centered, obviously, around Asians and Asian-Americans. "In the Heights" has a very multicultural cast that's predominantly Latinx characters. Do you see a link between the films in terms of how they celebrate community and identity?

JON M CHU: Yeah, I definitely thought of "In the Heights" as the sequel to "Crazy Rich Asians" in my mind. It was building off of an experience that I had that I didn't know I was going to have with "Crazy Rich Asians." It was something I needed to do for myself, and when I saw the reaction from a whole community of people-- the pride, the power of pride, the power of how confidence of a actor like Jimmy O. Yang or Ronny Chieng or Gemma or Henry or Constance or Awkwafina. That is contagious. That adds something when you feed off of when you see yourself up there, and you aspire to be like that person. Asian or not.

And I think coming into "In the Heights," I knew the responsibility or the power that we had in our hands that we could provide when you have someone like Lin-Manuel Miranda already having written music, and now I had a movie studio behind this. Like, AT&T and Warner Brothers that was going to sell this to the world as if worth your time and your money and your space. Now I had to put those things together and create something that they couldn't forget, the audience couldn't unsee.

KEVIN POLOWY: "Crazy Rich Asians" will always be looked at as this milestone in American film when it comes to Asian and Asian-American representation in Hollywood. Is that something that you take a deep, personal pride in?

JON M CHU: I didn't want to be seen as the Asian-American director. I just wanted to be seen as a director. So that choice alone took me 10, 12 years to be OK and confident enough to do that. And then once making it, meeting these actors and going to Singapore and making a movie with purpose that was bigger than the movie itself and knowing the responsibility that you got to entertain the hell out of this audience because that's our job. And then the audience's job is to whether to accept it and take it to the next level or not. And so it really allowed-- it sort of reframed things for me that I had to focus on just making the best story I could.

Now, looking back is a different phase because now I know that it actually wasn't the movie itself. Like, there needs to be a lot more movies with a lot more angles, and we made mistakes and I'm sure there's others that will make mistakes. But the more there is, the more rounded the image of an Asian-American in the world, or Asian diaspora in the world, can be. And that these actors would go on to win Golden Globes and host SNL and be on the cover of Time, and that those things, some kid is going to see that and know that that's possible. And that they make a new lane for a whole new generation of actors and people who can go there now.

KEVIN POLOWY: When you came into the industry, you worked on a lot of great films. Some widely seen dance films, especially. Still, where their frustrations that you encountered entering the industry coming from an underrepresented community? Did you feel at times like it was a uphill battle because of that?

JON M CHU: I think the uphill battle was when I was a kid, not knowing and nobody thinking that it was possible for an Asian-American director, just because it wasn't there. And they wouldn't say that it was impossible, they just wouldn't give it the time of day because they'd never seen it.

Half the time I would drive into a studio lot it when I first got into business, they would direct me to the deliveries gate.

[LAUGHS]

So, I mean, that didn't happen once. That happened, like, a lot. And maybe that's the way I was dressed, maybe that's because I had a backpack-- I don't know. But, you know, those things stick in your head that you, if you're self conscious of not belonging, that only pushes you more into that zone.

I'm no longer scared of being called an Asian-American director. I'm like, hell yeah I am Asian-American director, so let's go. What does that mean? We're going to define what that means now.

KEVIN POLOWY: What did you feel was your big breakthrough moment or project?

JON M CHU: I've been very lucky. When I made my short film in college, Steven Spielberg discovered it and I got thrown into the studio movie world. But I didn't know who I was. I just won the lottery, basically, and so I think it took 10 years of making movies, making, you know, "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never." Learning a little piece of who I was. Making GI Joe: Retaliation. Making another-- working with stars like Mark Ruffalo and Jesse Eisenberg, learning another piece of myself.

Until finally the big breakthrough for me was, I think, the internet yelling and screaming about "Oscars so White." About "Starring John Cho." Like, why wasn't that a possibility. And me looking at myself in the mirror and saying, I'm the problem. I'm part of the problem because I actually am in the system and I can go make whatever movie I want. I've made plenty of money for people, so I could do what they're asking right now and I'm not doing it and why?

And it took a lot-- a big introspection and choices to say I'm not going to make money for my agents and managers for the next five years. But I have to do this because I feel like I'm a father and the greatest story that I'm going to be telling next is the world to my children, to my daughter.

KEVIN POLOWY: What would you say have been the biggest differences in this-- it feels like there's varied seismic change occurring now. It maybe the last couple of years. What would you say have been sort of the biggest differences you've felt in the industry that l embedded since you first started from now?

JON M CHU: My mom said something recently to me. She said, yeah, I used-- when I'm in Taiwan I love movies because I could be somebody else. I could escape. I don't think it's good enough anymore to escape. I don't think people, when we're shoved with information and neighbors and new cultures in our lap now because of technology, that just escaping-- that's actually not a reality for anybody.

And in fact, instead of a window to look out, we actually need mirrors that help us see ourselves, that give us some sort of tool to help us in our normal life. And that is the America of tomorrow. Whether-- there's no ifs about it, it's when. And are we ready? Are we ready to face our neighbor? Are we ready to look at them and say, oh, I see you. Or are we going to ignore it until you can't? This is that moment.

[MUSIC PLAYING]