Move over Mando, "American Born Chinese" looks to become the next must-watch show on Disney+.

The new series based on the graphic novel comes to the streaming platform on May 24 and includes "Everything Everywhere All at Once" Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. We have an interview with the show's stars Ben Wang and Sydney Taylor, who talk about winning with the Oscar-winning actors.

And speaking of "Everything Everywhere," Oscar-nominated actor Stephanie Hsu will be starring in this summer's "Joy Ride" film starring Ashley Park, Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu. The film also is the directorial debut for Adele Lim, who is best know for writing "Crazy Rich Asians" and "Raya and the Last Dragon." 

Finally, Bruce talks about the new four-part documentary "The Secrets of Hillsong" on FX and Hulu.

Where to watch

About the show

Streamed & Screened is a podcast about movies and TV hosted by Bruce Miller, a longtime entertainment reporter who is now the editor of the Sioux City Journal in Iowa and Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer for Lee Enterprises based in Madison, Wisconsin.

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of streamed and screened and entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz is senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with someone who will be starring on Broadway very soon. Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal, longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, you're hitting the big city soon on the streets of Broadway.

I will not be on Broadway. I'll be in front of the theater. Is looking at shows. Yeah, my sister and I usually spend Memorial Day weekend. This is. I'm giving this to you as a potential thing you could do. We go to New York because nobody seems to be in New York over Memorial Day weekend. They all go somewhere else.

The Hamptons, the, you know, the shore, whatever it would be, the Jersey Shore. But people aren't normally in the city. And so it's a very good time to go to things like plays, like shopping, like eating, because the normal crowd isn't there. So we've done this for at least 30 years. Colbert threw us off because we didn't do it during those years.

Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. It's a chance to get to see what we might be seeing in other venues in years to come. It might be a streaming film, it might be a touring production that comes to your community. There's still there's a lot of stuff there to see. Fun stuff. I'm going to Sweeney Todd attend The Tale of Sweeney Todd.

I'll be there. That sounds fun. I just hit a little Broadway myself this past weekend in traveling Circa, we saw The Lion King came to Madison. Yeah. Second time seeing that. Yeah. It's great show. My wife and I saw it probably around 2008 or nine. We were just married and just kids. Do they go to play?

Yeah, exactly. So we used to go to the theater a lot when we were, you know, before kids. And then we had kids and we stopped going. Of course, But we've gone now. We took the kids to see Hamilton last year, and now we took them to go see Lion King, which is fun. There's an interesting scene. I'm not going to say spoiler alert, because that show has been out on the road for 25 years now.

But there is an interesting scene and I said to my wife, like, they've obviously changed this, but I don't know what it was beforehand. There's this scene where Zazu is being held captive by Scar. The lion and scar is like Entertain me and Zazu starts singing and he starts belting out lines from Let It Go from Frozen. Any scar is like, stop torturing me with that.

But you know, anything but that song. But I'm thinking to myself, Well, what was the other song? Because this show has been out on the road forever. What did that like? They obviously added that in recently, since, Yeah, know, it was probably another show that, you know, I wish I could tell you. Yeah. But there probably was another show they referenced just to be able to see under.

Yeah, it could be, it could be something like that. But what I want to know is did you get out of the this show without buying anything. Yes. Yes. That, that is like merchandise heaven. Yeah. I saw a lot of the parents there with the kids that are of the age where you need to buy something. My kids are not that age anymore.

They're 12. We walk in, we take our seats, we watch the show. We walk out in and out without. Yup, everyone is fine with that. So we've trained them well. We didn't you know, we took them to things like Disney on Ice when they were four or five. We would say to them like, Hey, kids, see, you know, you're going to see a lot of kids with all these toys and stuff that their parents buy them at the show.

They're really, really expensive. And do you really need that? Will you be honest with them? And they be like, no, we're fine. It's it was yeah, we know those are the limits. Those kids are troubled. They're not happy. So giving those toys, that's just trying to solve something that isn't there. And so we don't need that, do we?

Nope. Now, of course, I would be the kind yelling for everything if I don't get it all. I. I'm not. And that's me now. Yeah, now I if I don't come now, When? This next weekend. I'm going to six shows right. If I don't come back with six T-shirts, it's been a wasted trip. I at least have to have the t shirt, get shirts.

Yeah. Hit a bodega, get a buttered roll. Okay. That's a very New York thing to do. Just get a budget roll. It's just a big roll hardball with like a pound of butter on it. And then you have to decide how much of that butter you actually want to eat and then you don't need to eat. So the money that I spent a year would have been money I would have spent out of food.

Yep. The New York Times actually did an article one time called The Ode to the Butter Roll on how like utilitarian it is and how New York it is. So check that out. It's actual reading before you go to New York City. I will do that. Yeah. Yeah. So have fun with your trip. And when I'm wearing T-shirts, just know that you have to be jealous.

I will be okay. I'm just jealous. You're going back to my. My hometown. I was born in New York City, so let's start spreading the news. I know, I know. So kind of getting back to movies and entertainment and that kind of thing. We thought we were done talking about Everything Everywhere all at Once because we're past Oscar season and that kind of did its thing.

And but it's sort of back in the news. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, because many of the people who were involved in that film are also part of a new series on Disney+ called American Born Chinese. And this is based on a graphic novel that won a bunch of awards. And what it is, is it's taking the story of a boy in high school who is Asian-American, who really doesn't feel like he fits in.

He feels like, you know, I am the only one, it seems. And the teachers bring to him the new Asian kid years, a new Asian kid. And you're going to of course, you'll be the one to show them the ropes, right? Well, and what he realized is, is is this other kid is from a different world. He's from a much higher realm.

And he has all these skills and he's able to do all this kind of stuff. And his aunt is actually the goddess of mercy, played by Michelle Yeoh. So there are there's this kind of otherworldly element to this typical high school kind of growing up a story. And you see how he learns about other things that are around him, how the bullies, how do you deal with the bullies?

Will you see that reflected in the the situations that the gods and goddesses have to deal with on a higher level? So and it's very fun. If you've not seen the graphic novel, please read it. It is so fun. The panels are very snarky and they're really very cool. And these are these characters are ones that are just made whole cloth.

They're talked about in Chinese culture quite a bit. So they are gods and goddesses who actually are part of their their lore, their history. And so it's not like something that was just made up. It's like, what happens if these people come to visit? And I got a chance to talk to two of the stars of the film.

And I was really curious because when this was being filmed, it was kind of the the start of everything everywhere, eating up. It became something while they were there and what it was like to be with these people to see through their eyes what is their that whole experience like. And I, they were very forthcoming. Ben Wong, who is the lead in this show he plays Jin Wong, is a young actor from Minnesota, oddly enough, who just kind of made a decision that he was going to go to musical theater school and that Sidney Taylor, who is his costar in this, plays The Lust Object, who he really loves in this school, but doesn't know

that the relationship will ever amount to anything. And they were the two I talked to in conjunction with American born Chinese. All right. So let's go ahead and listen to that interview and we'll come back and talk a little bit about that show, the two of you, when you were making this, I would assume it was the same time that everything everywhere was just blowing up.

Was that true? And it came out while we were filming? Yes. What did you learn from Key and from Michelle about dealing with all of that? Because that was just huge. Well, I don't know. They were every time we so like, we shot the show, that movie came out and then, you know, we all went our ways and we get back together once in a while for pro for promotional stuff.

Right. And I'd see them every month or two. And I feel like every time I see them, they're they're like pedigree just get bigger and bigger and bigger. So but at the same time, they always remain the same people that we've met On day one before that movie had come out, you know, just humbled. No down to earth and kind and generous people.

And so that's what they did. You ask them for acting advice or anything about the business Now? I didn't dare. I was like, if they have, we didn't want to be a**holes. Terry's act. But just like, well, been growing up in Minnesota, how did you even think the idea was going to happen? That you would be in the business?

Oh, I didn't either. But I didn't know about the business. I didn't know what the business meant or was or could be. And I definitely didn't see a place for myself in it. But I kind of took a leap of faith. At the end of high school, I decided I was going to go to New York and and and train and in musical theater at NYU.

And it was sort of a decision that I made kind of on my own. And yeah, it was really only after I came out to New York and started really understanding what the business was. But now growing up, I was like, This is fun, this is cool. And that's all it will probably ever be. But I'm glad I was wrong.

Yeah, always. It's good to be wrong, right? Had you to read the book before this all started to happen? Were you familiar with it or not? No, I wasn't familiar with it at all. I hadn't heard of it, but I read it before our chemistry read. We had one chemistry before the audition process was over and I read the whole thing and in probably under an hour and couldn't put it down myself.

Yeah, same I had. And I didn't have it growing up in Minnesota. It wasn't in our public library, unfortunately. But yeah, I read it for the first time right after I got the audition size, which is the couple of scenes they show you. I was like, I need to find out more about this project because this just just the few scenes they gave me to audition with were incredible, I thought.

And yeah, I ran to the library. I was in Connecticut. I ran. Yes, ran. Not walked, ran, not walked to the to the Stamford, Connecticut public. That's where I was at the time. And I found it and I read it and I was crying and crying on the carpet. And the night guy like the janitor was telling me that we were closing in 6 minutes, You have to leave.

And I was like, Please, I need this to 20 or I need the book, right? Yeah. You're just like, Yeah, well, you know, had you found anything like that before where you said, you know, this I can relate to at all? Never, Never. And that was what was so incredible. It made me realize that it's doing media is not always just sort of an empathetic act, right?

Where you're learning about some something else and relating to something that's not quite like what your experiences are. For the first time, I was like, Oh, you can read something and feel like it's about you. And that was really powerful and it made me, you know, really want to get to work on the show because I know this show is going to be that for you.

Now, during this time, what is that like, that anticipation that this could really be something huge? Yeah, it's we've been sitting on it for a year and I just want people to see it. But I also I don't want like my life to change or I just want people to see it. Exactly. I want people to see it and enjoy it.

Yeah. And doing that kind of there are a lot of special effects in this. I was surprised at how many there actually are. Is that difficult to do? I mean, if you go to acting school, I'm assuming that you go, Well, they didn't talk about this. They didn't tell you about the iron diaper in an acting lifting. That's a that's a that's something you used to fly.

Oh, I let you elaborate. Let me elaborate more. They put on you this, like Kevlar iron, the thing that looks like a giant diaper that they attach wires, suicide. And there's two guys standing on ladders and pulleys. You know, you growing up watching these movies, you think, oh, it's all must be robots and like, high technology. But no, it's just too big.

Do you do on ladders? And then the stunt coordinator goes, okay, action. And they jump off their ladders and you go this way. So it was it was an adventure. It was an adventure. And it was fun, but also kind of terrifying. And Sydney, how did you know that you two were were a real good team together? I we both knew that from like the first day we actually met.

We met for the first time in person during the cast dinner and the whole time we were essentially just talking to each other was like this long table with like desks and Cretton and Kelvin. You had Michelle Yeoh and Qi and, and all of these wonderful, wonderful people and me and better at least a small team of people that, you know, bring everyone.

And I felt bad, but like we really did just like have a really good connection from the start. I think we bonded over a lot of things that our childhood and shared childhood challenges. But yeah, bring us together. Bonded over it. It's fine. Thank you guys so much. I'm dying for the series to be really a huge hit.

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Bruce, thanks for that interview. Sounds interesting. What's the target audience on this? Have you seen. Yeah, really? They're trying to hit the high school audience and they want to they want to age up a bit so that all Disney shows aren't seen as, oh, they're for kids. They're not Adults can watch it.

It's it has a very Mandalorian kind of vibe to it, if you will, where you can put the whole family in it and they're still going to find something and they're looking to a second season. So it isn't like one and done. I think what it does, though, is it opens us up to a bunch of Asian stories that we've never heard before.

And I think by doing that, we're going to see much richer stories. There's going to be more storytelling that isn't repetitive. And I think there, you know, even now, when you look at some of the summer movies, there are influences that we're seeing that are already starting to appear. Yeah. So there's also that connection too, with everything everywhere now, Michelle Yeoh is in this and she was obviously in everything everywhere you played.

Kwan Yeah, you get it. And then the director of the Shang, she is also involved in this and you'll see a lot of those kind of it's a small community, a lot of those connections, six degrees of separation that come into play in this in this series. And that's kind of fun to see that they got together and they said, you know what?

We should be working on these things together and I think what we'll see is they'll it'll be their own little kind of Marvel Universe where they will create more content that will see their world spread out in other ways. And everything everywhere kind of did the same thing. This this series does is it combines two worlds, an otherworldly kind of thing.

And then the kind of mundane world of a laundromat owner. And you see how those two can swirl around. Just like this boy in high school and his new friend who has this great extensive relative chain, if you will. I think that's I think we're going to see more of that. I think that's this is the sign of things to come.

And why not? You know, if you look back, name Asian age, Asian movies that you really warm to. Are you remember Asian series Fresh Off the Boat was like the last thing I can remember that had any kind of theming like this. Let's see these stories because they're interesting stories. They're fascinating stories. And I think it's it's a brand new world for everybody.

So looking a little bit further now out into the summer, there's another story which also has a little bit of a connection to everything everywhere. Stephanie Hsu, who we saw on Oscar, right? She is an Oscar nominee for that movie. She's going to be in a movie this summer. That was directorial debut by Adele Lim, who co-wrote Crazy Rich Asians.

Joy RIde Yeah, And Joy Ride is like a lot of those girls Trip hang over any of those ones. They were kind of a group of people getting together and getting in trouble. And now we're seeing it in theaters with older actresses. Look at the book club, the next Chapter 84. Brady All these are kind of really takes on Golden Girls.

You look at the Golden Girls, you see they put four people together there. Each one represents a different kind of aspect of a community. And then how do they cope when they get into trouble? And that's joy, right? Right there. Yeah. And it's also, I guess, an opportunity to to kind of break out because it's one of those buddy movies to an extent, but it gets away from the traditional body of just, you know, three or four dudes kind of hanging out together.

It's it's yeah, it's an extension of yet more opportunity to find somebody you like. You know there's a character you can relate to and you always think, which one would I be? I would be the whatever what. So yeah, I think it's going to be big. I think this will be a big film. And I do think that the momentum that we've been seeing with shows like Everything Everywhere and also with now American born Chinese, and I'm not I'm not trying to shine you on with this, but I do think it's going to be huge this summer.

I think it's going to be one of those TV shows that you're going to say, I must watch it. I must see this, because it's fascinating, fascinating to watch. It does look pretty good. I know when you forwarded me the the audio, there was some press materials included. I may have you might have copy. I might have snooped a little bit, looked at a clip here or there.

It looks really good. I'm kind of excited for this. And I, I think as a family, somebody who's looking for family entertainment because it's really getting hard sometimes to find. And my kids are at that age where they're too old for the little kids stuff. But some of the other shows that are out there are just a little too mature for them still.

And it looks like that type of show where as a tween even, they'll be able to kind of get into it. So I'm kind of looking forward to it. With the writers strike going on, I think you need to embrace these things that are written because we are going to have a long stretch of reality shows, game shows, sporting events that will make you glad that you saw something that was scripted.

They've already announced the fall schedules for the networks and they're just packed with game shows. And I don't know, even if it's Jeopardy, I don't know how often I can watch it. I can't take any more of that. I just I have to hope and pray that my New York Mets are going very deep into the playoffs because there you go.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what looks like we're going to be basing. But can I tell you another one that I have been watching and it's coming out this next week. It's called Secrets of Hillsong and I don't know about the Hillsong Church, but the Hillsong Church was the one that Justin Bieber started attending. It's kind of a hip megachurch and the the preacher, there was somebody that, you know, I mean, come on, you think he's hip, he's cool.

This guy, Carl Lentz, is his name. He is just the man. And you can see why celebrities were attracted to him. A lot of basketball players were members of the church. And then he had a fall and he was apparently seeing more of the babysitter then or the nanny then the kids were. And so then he resigned and is no longer at the church.

But he participated in this documentary that talks about Hillsong. And Hillsong is a huge force in the Christian music business because they do a lot of Christian albums. They've won Grammys. I mean, it's they're they're the big deal. But it started in Australia and it goes back and it kind of shows us how this church got going. What spurred the church and what keeps it going.

Now they don't talk to the guy who founded the church and it says at the end of every episode we tried to reach him. He would not return our calls. He is not. So this is not a complete documentary where you go, Oh my God, this is what really is going on because it's still successful. Hillsong is still going.

There are still many ministers who are, you know, doing their thing and bringing in that hipper, younger audience. But that's something that you hear at churches all the time. How do we get the young people? How do we get the young people? Well, here they show you in this documentary how they got the young people to come to their church and what that meant.

And then those young people talk about what the church either did or didn't do for them. But it's a fascinating documentary. And yes, Carl Lentz does talk in this and he talks about his experience and the things that he did wrong. That's on Epix and also Hulu. And you'll see that coming out this next week. All right. So that's another one.

Check out last week's episode that we did. We looked at six movies to watch the summer episodes done very well so far, but we only touched on six movies. So next week, seven, we're going to kind of yeah, we're going to do the top 100 movies that you may now want to watch. Yeah, no, we're we're going to look at there's kind of like, I guess to some degree it's the best of the rest movies that are coming out this summer, but also an opportunity for us to maybe pick out some that we think might just like crash and burn horribly.

It should be fun. So come back next week and we will extend our summer blockbuster preview. And until then, thank you for listening to streamed and screened.

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