Constance Wu

to Many Questions, Season two. I've always loved Prust's question that it was originally a nineteenth century parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the other players true nature. It's just the scientific method really. In asking different people the same set of questions, you can make observations about which truths appeared to be universal.

I love this discipline, and it made me wonder, what if these questions were just the jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed if I asked these questions as conversation starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I adapted prus questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I personally think a pertinent to a person's story, they are, when and where were you happiest? What is the quality you like least

about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you most like answered? What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? What would be your last meal? And can you tell me something in your life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You may not hear their answers to

all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest today is actor Constance Will. Constance has starred in the Film's Crazy Rich, Asan's Hustlers, and the TV series Fresh off the Boat. She's been included in Time Magazine's list of the hundred most Influential people in the World, and

she has just had a new book published. Her book, Making a Scene is a series of essays that delve into her memories of childhood, young love and heartbreak, and more. Devastatingly sexual assault and harassment. It was really interesting reading about her experience of life inside Hollywood, and her stories offer a behind the scenes look at being Asian American in the entertainment industry and the continuing evolution of her

own identity and influence in the public eye. We bonded over a shared love of Marjorie Williams two book, The Velveteen Rabbit, and I really really enjoyed our conversation. What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? I write about this in my book. There is a chapter called real Love, and it's actually about my pet bunny rabbit. And I'm not saying that my pet bunny rabbit epitomizes real love, because I've had greater love affairs than the one with

my pet. But in the end, I talked about a section in that children's book, The Velveteen Rabbit, Oh Yeah, where he talks about what is real and what is real love and it's not about how you're made. And the skin horse says something like, usually by the time you're real, all your hair has been loved off and your eyes have dropped down, and you're really shabby, and it hurts sometimes but it doesn't matter because by the

time you're real, that kind of thing doesn't matter. And if somebody thinks that matters, then they just don't understand. That story, I think really epitomizes real love. Velveteen Rabbit. I think that was probably the first book that I cried with my mother about. It's beautiful. That's such a gentle choice of definition of love and of a book as well. It's funny the wisdom you find in a

kid's book. I you don't think you would, but then there's just such moving wisdom, and Velveteen Rabbit it's a perfect example of that. I agree. It's beautiful and really sad. We read that along with this book called The Water Babies, which is another unfathomably English book that is super super sad. But you think it's a kid's book about kids who

were like chimney sweeps. You know, in the Victorian era they would send little children because they were tiny and they could fit up the chimneys and they could clean them out. My god, there's a uniquely British sort of torture small children. Anyway, it's about one of these little chimney sweeps and how he comes down into the bedroom of this girl in the fancy house and becomes her friend. And it is about friendship and about love. But of course, because it's I guess it was written in like the

nine twenties, Like the Child. He dies in the end, and I remember like closing the book and being like, you can't this can't be real, Like he can't actually, he can't actually die, And my mother was like, yes, he he did. Shall we watch Sesame Storie? But you know why, this is how children's books are deep, because it's like, these are real life things that happen that you know, children are going to have to understand. I mean, I got to read that book man now the water

the Water Babies. It's called The Water Babies, and it's listen when I say that he dies, he does die, because I did a lot of reception to the book. But there's this whole world that he goes into underneath the water, and you realize that it's the death process, right, it's a metaphor. And he finds all these characters and all these people, and you realized that the writer was really trying to say that there is freedom and death from the kind of the poverty and oppression of the

suffering of human experience. However, as a little child, it's pretty devastating. But also I don't know, it stayed with me my whole life in the same way. Those are the two books, The Velveteen Rabbit and the Water Babies, with the two books from my childhood that I will reread them and love them. And there's a reason why they're classics, because they're able to just hit that spot in your heart. Exactly. I'm gonna go and reread it's

your bunny current. Yes, she's still downstairs right now. She's nine years old. Funny, does she go to set with you? Ever? She does? She she comes in my trailer almost every day. And her eye has also dropped out, just like the velveteen rabbit. She only has one eye didn't drop out. I had to remove it because she had like a cataract and like whatever. But it's funny, the parallel. It is funny the parallels in Chinese astrology. Are you a rabbit? I wish? No, I'm a dog? What are you? I'm

a dog? Really? Oh, that's funny, so cool. But they get on really well with rabbits, Yes they do. And everybody loves a dog who doesn't love a dog. Bad people, Yeah, bad people don't like dogs. That's it. Sorry? Will you tell me where and when you were happiest? Probably right after I pooped out a baby. It is exactly like pooping out, isn't it. Nobody talks about that enough. The nurse I was like holding my leg as she was like,

it's like you're taking a big poop. It's like she kept saying that as I was pushing did you I got so scared that that was what was going to happen. I was like, I just don't want to pooh on the doctor. I don't want to do that whole thing. I accepted that it was going to happen because they because everybody told me, like, you know what, it's going to happen. So and I don't know if it happened obviously, because like you know, I had never darl and like,

they're not going to tell you that. The doctor is not going to be like by the way, you ship right in front of me, you ship the bed. Yeah, it's like I also shot a baby, man, like, come on, not shot, but terrible. But I pushed out a baby. Definitely my happiest moment because in the aftermath of oh my god, I got it out mixed in with oh, I have my dear little baby, yeah, who you've been

waiting to me for like nine months. And she was so like not that babies can see when they're first born, but she was so like in wonder of the world and like taking it in and like it was just the most beautiful thing to see and to hold her against your skin and like to see that face, this person you've been carrying inside you. I mean, it's there's it's truly the happiest ever. It is right they told me I was having a girl. The doctor had told

me the wrong thing. I wasn't surprised. I wanted love to be the first word that she heard when she came out. So as I was like having the baby and pushing, I was like, and I pushed the baby and it's a boy. And my mother goes, oh my goodness, it's a boy. And I went, what the that's amazing. So that was the first thing my son heard. But it is it's remarkable like that. It's certainly these little aliens. But isn't that that the perfect encapsulation of life sometimes

is love? And what the fuck, I mean together and also happiness. I was just talking to my friend Fern today. We are so obsessed with the idea that happiness is not an adjunct to all the other ships. It's the bit that saves us, but it's often the kind of corridor through all the stuff that doesn't work out. The idea of that being untainted, that love being untainted by what the funk is ridiculous. Their part in parcel. They don't exist without each other and probably symbiotic and wouldn't

exist without the other one. Yeah, it's like light doesn't exist without dark. Dark doesn't as well light. You gotta find gratitude for both things. How does that happen? Though? I feel like in this day and age they wouldn't see on the ultrasound like, oh no, actually we're wrong, this isn't it, Like that's crazy. Well, it turns out with all the love in the world. And I'm not even gonna name check him because I love him and

he's still delivering babies. But he was like the gaff doctor of all time, Like he told more people like the gender when they didn't want to know the thing with the thing, there was a whole lot of kind of Mr Magooism around my beautiful o G. So he told me I was having a girl, and then I burst into tears because I don't want to know. And so then he wrote on my chart never mentioned the

gender again. So then all the other ultra sounds they could see, but he completely forgotten that he said it was a girl, they could see that it was a boy, and nobody said anything ever again until I had the baby. That makes sense. What question would you most like answered? How a full defended sheet? I don't know me you can have that because I'm with you on that one.

I've looked up on the internet how to do it, and I guess there's a way, but it's not really exactly how I would want it to be, Like it's not neat. I agree with you. And also I don't accept the imperfection, like I think we all spend a lot of time trying to accommodate imperfection, and we're told that everything is imperfect, which is completely accurate. There's something

about a fitted sheet. It feels personal, and it also feels just like bad design and that nobody thought it through and that there are all kinds of ramifications that passed me off. Yeah, that's one, that's the practical one. You know. There's an ex lover of mine who had a very long love it there off and on for over a decade. I write about him in my book and the final time we broke up because any times, you know, he said he didn't want to commit because

he was trying to protect himself from being hurt. And I wonder if that worked out for him, if he suffered over it, because I I don't nestally have a feeling that you can't ever protect yourself from pain without blocking yourself from love. So I have a feeling that he still does suffer over it. So the pain protection plan didn't work. So if it didn't work, then why not just choose love if pain is going to happen anyway,

because at least then you have both. But I truly wonder because I don't know, because I I don't talk to him anymore, and not because we're on bad terms, we're not, but because it was just like you know, when you have a connection with somebody that's so deep that even talking to them resparks this thing that you can't you know, it's not gonna work out. Because we tried a million times, so it's just like, all right, this is my kryptonite. So maybe let's just like not.

But you know, I'll always love him and Cary love for him and want nothing but happiness for him. So I do genuinely wonder if he ever suffered over it, if his pain protection plan worked or not. I wonder. Wow, I don't know, like I wonder in the absence of vulnerability, I don't know. I don't think you can get the full experience of anything without a certain level of vulnerability.

I really don't. Yeah, I would say that in my tennis lessons, all the way through to love and shopping, there has to be a level of revealing the soft underbelly. I think, yeah, you have to. It's like the light the dark. Like we said earlier, one doesn't exist without the others. So you have to accept both in order to have the full experience. But I think I use he didn't think so, so you know, so I wonder.

I don't know. I had that with a dude. I had that with a dude, And it's so funny it came around and like literally eighteen years later of him coming and saying, this is why that happened, and he didn't end up with someone that he loved. He ended up with somebody who could accommodate the way in which he wanted to live his life. And he was like, I never wanted to be in love with you, because if I was in love with you, I know I would have hurt you because it was all this other

stuff that I couldn't do. I couldn't let it in. But there was something about the acknowledging that was satisfying, you know, and me and this guy he did do that also ten years later after our first breakup, and so then I was like, oh my god, this is finally the time. And I thought he had changed, but he had changed enough that he could understand that, but fears and ego eventually crept in and he wasn't able

to sustain it. But I'm proud of myself because, you know, I basically like let him break my heart three times over the course of fifteen years, every time thinking something would change. But I guess it didn't. I guess history repeats itself, which is why I'm not talking to him ever again, because well, let's not repeat more history, right, well, and you never run into him, no, no, he lives in New York, first of all, and you know we

run in very different circles. Great, I think that whole definition of insanity of like doing the same thing over and over again and expect sometimes you have to just admit that with people. But it's hard because you always think you want to be able to accommodate change and growth and the idea that that is possible, but I think, honestly, sometimes it isn't. And also, like I could believe that he's changed without having to be there to witness it.

I could think about, like, oh, you know what, that's why the answer to your question is I wonder if that's worked out for him, because I know that he was working on things and I do wish nothing but the best for him. But I could still hold faith that his life is going to work out in a beautiful way without having to be the one who's around when it works out that way, because that's part of my ability to change too, right to not engage in that again? Yeah, yeah, what quality do you like at

least about yourself? I could be a little impatient with people or just in general with tasks, you know, And I'm just thinking, like asking your boyfriend to take out the garbage. That's the thing that that should be done when it's asked for, not three days later, when more garbage is piled up, and then he's like, oh, but I did take it out, and I'm like, yes, three days after I asked you. You know, these very common domestic squabbles. But yeah, sort of like to do list

type of things that should seem very ordinary. I get impatient when they're procrastinated. Can I ask you, because I know that you come from a lot of women in your family? Yes, do you have four sisters or three? Your one of four? I'm one of four, so four girls in my family. So is everybody very different or is that something that came from your family of Listen, there ain't time. There's too many kids. There's too much stuff to be done, and if I ask you to

do something, you better do it right. Then. I feel like half and half. I feel like two of us are kind of impatient with tasks and the other two are much more relaxed about it. I guess you have to have someone to be impatient with. Yeah, yeah, there's two pairs of us. So it's like my older two sisters are only a year apart, and myself and my younger sister are only two years apart, and there's a big gap in the middle. So I feel like each

pair balances each other out. So in the older pair, there's somebody who's more on task and somebody who's more relaxed, and then the younger pair, like I'm the extrovert, my little sister is the introvert. We kind of balanced each other out, is how it worked. That's really cool. I like that. Yeah, me and my sister sometimes we switch roles. That's the weird thing. Sometimes I'll be the taskmaster and she'll be the supplicant, and then we flip. It's interesting.

I think I drive insane. What would be your last meal? Oh? Probably Japanese chicken curry. It's like a comfort food for me, and my mom used to make that. Like I just even thinking about how she would be, like browning the onions in the skillet before making it. I love it. It's so good. Does she teach you how to cook? No, you don't cook. I don't cook. She taught me a little bit of a little bit. I take it back, she tried to teach me how to cook. I didn't

pay attention. Did she teach your younger sister? No, My younger sister is probably the same as me. My older two sisters are much better cooks, and I think she probably taught them better. I feel like the older kids they have a more thorough experience with everything, right, because by the younger kids, the parents are like fuck it, I get on with it. I'm exhausted. Yeah, like do whatever you want? You care? Yeah, exactly. It's funny. My son is becoming a better cook. Now. How old is

he was fourteen yesterday? Oh my god, yeah, it's bananas. Has gone by so fast that I know. It's crazy. You don't feel you just don't feel any older. I don't feel any older. I don't feel any different. I don't feel any different than I was when I was twenty six. I mean, thank god, I am very different, but I don't feel any different at all from the day that I had him. And it's the weirdest thing. In the new sneakers that I gave him, he is

now taller than me. Oh my god, it's amazing. It's crazy, Like I'm they're still going do you remember when we did? And he's like, yeah, I totally remember that. It was awesome. Now burgers and I'm like, oh, I suppose so. And now he takes my hand across the street. Oh my god, like I'm a little old lady. It's the nicest thing I have to say. How beautiful he's fantastic. How old is your daughter? She just turned to My god, she's

a baby, but oh my god. It's so fun though, just watching her become a person, to go from this little nugget to like, the other day, I gave her my almost empty Lacroix plan because as if I give her a full one, she'll just dump the whole thing out. And she she like took it and trying to simp from it. Then she goes nothing there. You know, this is a two year old, you know, like she still goes in the corner to announce that she's pooping, you know, like in her diaper. Oh my god, I love it.

I know, it's really fun. Nothing there. You can't fool me. There's nothing nothing here, nothing in this scan. I know. They do go from being these like little drunk blobes totally just sort of teaching, and then suddenly they turn around and they're like and they also remember they're getting the measure of us. That's sort of watching and observing and going like, I know this person is going to give me absolutely everything. How can I manipulate the rest

out of them? Yeah, they're clever, They're clever and smart, and we made them. Yeah, and it's our own fault. In your life. Can you tell me about something that has grown out of a personal disaster? Um? Yeah, you know, you know, I mentioning my book a lot, but because my book is very formative for me, and there's a chapter in which I talk about a thing that happened to me in eighth grade that I could never get over the pain of. And I've had objectively worse things

happened to me in my life. It was just basically teacher accusing me of not really writing my term paper and like plasiarizing. But it's something that like I just could never get over, from when I'm twelve to now when I'm forty, still can't get over. But in the process of writing it, I took the time to think about how it also helped me in a way that's so obvious right that I can't believe it took me, you know, almost thirty years to realize because you know,

she thought I plas your eyes. She didn't have any proof because I didn't plas your eyes. So what she did was she went to all my other teachers and made them say to my face, like, don't believe you're good enough to have written it. And that was her proof, I know, to make me cry even talking about it now, because it was like, because you can't find the proof, you know, you're going to make all the teachers say

to my face, you're not good enough. But the only teacher who believed that I was good enough to have written it was my drama teacher. And I'm like, oh my god, how did it take me thirty years to realize that the only teacher and I didn't used to want to be an actress who believed in me was my drama teacher and I ended up becoming an actress.

I mean, it's like, it's crazy to think about, but that's like basificly something that has stuck with me, and I didn't realize for thirty years how it has shaped me and helped me in a way that I really appreciate because I was just focusing on the pain of it so much. I'm really sorry that happened. Oh it's okay. No, it's the worst. It's the word to be accused of something that you didn't do, and to not be able

to put that down. That eighth grade teacher and my drama teacher, Mr. Frazell, who believed in me, that really altered my life. Did you talk to your drama teacher about that whole thing? He unfortunately passed away. I looked back for him when I was writing it, and I realized and he passed away. I think you like a heart attack a while ago. So that made me very sad. But the teacher who accused me, I did not when

I wrote it. But I did reach out to her ten years after it happened, when I was in college and going through a lot of therapy because it's still within my heart, and I called the into years trying to prove to her. I was like, hey, remember me in eighth grade. I really wrote that and it was wrong of you to do that to a kid, like, oh my god. I tried to give her a piece of my mind. It didn't work. Writing me essay was much more healing. Yeah, I bet I'm glad that you

did that. Yeah, And I wish that Mr. Frazell was still alive for me to thank him, but by the time I wrote that and realized that he had passed away. Unfortunately. It's amazingly gifts. I mean, I hope everybody has a teacher like that. I don't think everybody does, but I certainly had a couple. It's so meaningful. It stays with you, like whatever it is they gave you, or they defended for you or they helped shape, stays with you for

you whole entire life, the whole life. Yeah, I was writing your book enormously cathartic because there you are, actually like to write a book like, it's quite something, I think, to tell your stories to open up. Did that feel like it answered some of that in a larger way for yourself? Yeah, because I might have told that story million times in therapy. The telling of it versus the putting it down in language makes you think about it in a different way, and it actually makes it kind

of more real. It's funny because it's like, sometimes it feels like physical wounds feel more real than emotional wounds because you have the scar to prove it right, But emotional wounds have just as much of an effect on you, and it's almost feels like putting it down in written language is like the physical proof that it happened to you. And I think that's why it was healing, because it opens the wound into like the physical area, so you like, oh,

see it, this is a thing that happens. Now that I've put it in language, I can help give it the time and carrot needs to heal. And so it was. Yes, talk is great. I've been a therapy for like decades and I love it, but writing it down in language is something that is definitely very underrated. And with healing, talking is more cathartic. Writing was more healing. Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it. Talking is cathartic. Writing is healing. Yes, exactly. I was told to journal.

It's hard. I was told to journal so often and it's so hard to do it. But it was actually easy to then go. You know, it's not the journaling. I need to write these hard stories like I need to or I want to try, And I think exactly what you're saying, you need a structure to it. Yes, isn't it interesting that rather than it like calcifying as you say it, like I love the idea of words of scar tissue of proof of emotional trauma, even with a small tea or a big tea. Constance, thank you

so much. I so appreciate your time. It's great talking to you. It really is fantastic. Thank you. I appreciate that you can enjoy more of Constance's stories in her new book, Making a Scene Out Now. Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Executive

produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella and Nique Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescador, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support, Henry Driver