'Joy Ride' Stars Needed to Be Taught How to Use Drugs: 'We Are All Dweebs' (Exclusive)
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'Joy Ride' is in theaters July 7
In one of the most memorable scenes in Joy Ride, Ashley Park, Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu's characters are forced to quickly hide, snort and swallow a not-small amount of illegal substances on a train traveling through China.
"You'd think, 'Oh actors, they run with a fast crowd and they know what the kids are doing,'" says Adele Lim, who directed the raucous comedy about four friends who go on a business trip to Asia that goes gloriously wrong. "[Ashley's character Audrey] has never done a line of coke in her life and neither had Ashley. We had to pull in someone from the crew — won't say who — to teach them how to cut lines of coke with a credit card because we are all dweebs."
The on-set education extended to bongs as well, for a scene that didn't make it into the movie. "There's a little mini scene of Audrey and [Sherry Cola's character] Lolo getting high in a little shed house," says Lim. "Ashley and Sherry straight up did not know how to smoke pot or use a bong, and I remember handing a prop bong to Ashley and she full-on stuck her mouth where the little pipe of weed went to. She's like: 'Do I suck this?' I'm like, 'No, no you do not suck it like that. God, did you not have a normal college experience? Where have you been?'"
Still, the stars were nothing but committed when actually filming the drug-fueled scenes. "I had so much fun when we were stuffing drugs and just inhaling all of the pills — I watched the playback of me throwing green pils in my mouth and doing fake coke," says Cola, who plays the wisecracking Lolo. "I felt like Lucille Ball in that scene with the [chocolates] and the assembly line."
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Cola's emphasis on verisimilitude extended to actually snorting the crushed B12 vitamins that stood in for the cocaine. "At one point I said, 'F--- it, I'll just snort it.' There was a tube through my jacket sleeve with a little straw thing and you just pretend. And here I was. Representing the community."
The scene is not only hilarious — it also skewers Asian tropes, something that the cast and crew were keen to do from the beginning. "We are usually number four on the call sheet to be made fun of," says Hsu who plays sexpot-turned-unwillingly-celibate-actor Kat. "The four of us are here, making fun of ourselves, being disgusting. Not model minorities whatsoever. One of my favorite ads for this film [says] 'We will bring dishonor to us all.' It's amazing. It's fun to just get to have a good time and make a mess and be joyful."
Joy Ride is in theaters July 7.
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