Joy Ride cast on why they 'needed' the movie to happen: 'This is rare'

Sex, drugs, and genital tattoos abound in Joy Ride, Adele Lim's raunchy directorial feature debut centered on four Asian American friends who embark on a wild excursion throughout Asia.

The comedy (out July 7) follows Audrey (Ashley Park), a successful attorney and adoptee sent to China to close an important deal for her firm. She enlists her childhood best friend, the irreverent and foul-mouthed Lolo (Sherry Cola), to be her interpreter. Joined by Lolo's eccentric cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) and Audrey's former college roommate Kat (Stephanie Hsu), who's now a big soap opera star in China, the four decide to track down Audrey's birth mother. The trip, however, goes off the rails when they encounter a fellow American and drug dealer (Search Party's Meredith Hagner) aboard the train, who abandons them with the stash as the Chinese authorities close in, setting the stage for the exploits to come.

Ed Araquel/Lionsgate Stephanie Hsu, Ashley Park, Sabrina Wu, and Sherry Cola in 'Joy Ride'

At the center of the debauchery is a tale of friendship, belonging, and identity — one that will strike a chord with Asian Americans who've often felt caught between two disparate worlds: too American to be Asian, too Asian to be American. Perhaps what will feel more foreign but deeply restorative to audiences is that such a demographic is at the forefront of the bawdy film. Western media has historically relegated Asian Americans in R-rated romps to one-dimensional supporting characters, often played for laughs by way of broken English or hypersexualization. So when they were presented with a script where four Asian Americans are at the center of the action, the four leads had a hunger to bring the story to the screen.

"Before diving into the process of Joy Ride and seeing the script and how refreshing it was, there was a part of me that needed to be a part of this," Cola says, sitting alongside her costars in EW's Around the Table interview (video above). "I was like, 'Oh, wow, this is rare. The first of its kind.' And it's also just so unapologetically funny."

Park agrees. "I think all of us, when we got the script, we were like, 'This movie has to happen,'" the Emily in Paris star says. "That's why there's such a genuine grace and gratitude for us [having been] a part of it... As much as we've all wanted things in the past, it was more about, 'If I get to be a part of this, that's so cool, but please, please, please let this movie happen.'"

Ed Araquel/Lionsgate Sabrina Wu, Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, and Stephanie Hsu in 'Joy Ride'

Hsu — fresh off her role in the acclaimed Everything Everywhere All At Once, which earned her her first Oscar nomination at the ceremony in March and nabbed Michelle Yeoh her historical Best Actress win — was stunned that the studio wanted to make space for four Asian leads. "There's historically been such a mentality of, 'There's only one seat at the table,'" Hsu says. "Ashley and I knew each other from the world of Broadway and we were in callbacks together, both for Mindy [Chen, in Emily in Paris, and] that was like, 'There's one slot for you.' I remember reading the [Joy Ride] script and being like, 'There can be four of us.'"

Park adds, "I think that we are all hungry and best equipped being in an ensemble and really lifting each other up."

Watch the stars discuss auditions, that drug bust sequence on the train, the K-Pop cover of Cardi B's "WAP," and more in EW's Around the Table above. Joy Ride is in theaters July 7.

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