Exclusive Interview: Celia Au and Amy Chang Discuss Their Award-Winning Film In a New York Minute

Celia Au and Amy Chang are two of the stars of the must-see indie film In a New York Minute.

The compelling drama follows three strangers as they accidentally discover the solution to their problems lies in a single pregnancy test. Amy is haunted by a past breakup that has manifested into an eating disorder. Angel is caught between a loveless marriage to an American businessman and a passionate affair with a Chinese writer. Nina moonlights as an escort in order to support herself.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Celia and Amy about In a New York Minute, the importance of cultural appreciation, and more.

PC: To start, In a New York Minute is now available on all streaming platforms. What should audiences know about each of your characters? Amy, do you want to kick us off?
Amy: I play Amy Chen. My name is Amy Chang, so that was already a draw there. [laughs] She is a food editor who has recently suffered from a relationship breakup that manifests itself in an eating disorder. Meanwhile, she’s dealing with an annoying coworker and her parents’ expectations for her future.

Celia: I play a character named Nina. She is a daughter that helps her parents in their pho shop by day and is an escort by night. You find out that she’s saving up her money to help pay for her dad’s medical bills and trying to find her own freedom.

PC: New York is a melting pot, and we’ve seen other projects that are based and set in this city, but never depicted in this way, which has been a mission for both of you as artists—to bring more authenticity and diverse storytelling to the forefront. Why do you think it’s taken the industry so long to get here? Is there an added sense of pressure and responsibility for each of you?
Celia: I was saying to multiple people that if you pluck out these characters in this film and plug them in with different people of color or with Caucasian actors, it still works. It’s a universal story. What makes a difference is that people don’t like to tell stories from a person of color’s perspective.

In a New York Minute shows three Asian women living their lives in New York City. It shows New York in ways that we don’t really see on TV or in films; it’s not the glamorous Time Square—I don’t think we have a single shot in Time Square in this film. We’re showing local neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan that hardly ever get featured on film. That makes this project also so special—you get to see what the neighborhoods of New York City are when it’s not all showtunes and Broadway.

Like I was saying, these characters are special because anyone can relate to them. You don’t have to be Asian. I feel like we need to tell more of these stories where these experiences can happen to multiple people across the board.

As far as why it’s taken so long, Hollywood throughout the years has always thought that Caucasian stories and certain types of stories are the only ones that can make money. This film getting distribution is already a huge step. Now, the next step is for the audience to support and talk about it. Hopefully, we will get a “Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes so we can get some stamps of approval. Even you guys interviewing us and wanting to talk about this film is already a huge step for an indie film. We need to keep pushing the boundaries and support each other.

Amy: I’ll tag onto that. We’re seeing a lot more people of color in decision-making positions. We have people of color as producers, writers, and directors. These things take time, but I feel like we’ve gone through waves where things seem like they’re progressing. Some of us remember Joy Luck Club. At the time when that came out, everybody was like, “Okay, yes, Asian and Asian Americans are making it on the scene,” but it’s taken a while. The ball has to get rolling. Thank goodness for those in the past who have brought us to this point. We’ve got to keep the momentum going.

This film was shot before Crazy Rich Asians came out, but we’ve seen in the past few years films like Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi, all of these films that are making Hollywood take notice. People want to see these stories of diversity. To Celia’s point, these are universal stories; they have universal themes, but there are specific calls to our cultural heritage. It’s not front and center, but you pick up on things about our characters, the food that they eat or the way they relate to their parents. I think those are things that work in our film’s favor towards making it approachable to a wide audience.

PC: Something that this film does brilliantly is it depicts the generational nuances between your characters and their parents, particularly with their mothers, and this idea of expectation and Asian guilt. What was it like collaborating with your fellow actors when bringing those dynamics to life? Did you draw on any personal experiences when shaping these relationships?
Amy: People will recognize Cheng Pei-Pei as Jade Fox from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She’s had a very illustrious career and we were very honored to have her on set with us. I got to play with her as my mother.

In terms of personal relationships, I actually drew more from my relationship with my dad in terms of how Amy relates to her mother, meaning that there is this cultural expectation. Amy Chen, my character, was born in San Francisco. She’s an American-born Chinese. Personally, I was born in Taiwan, but our family moved to the US when I was four. I grew up very much entrenched in American culture and what that meant for us at that time. My parents very much wanted us to assimilate and learn English without an accent. That was a priority.

For Amy and myself, it was about juggling the pursuit of the American dream with individualism and personal achievement. Balancing that with respecting your parents and the sacrifices that they made for us to be here and trying to find a way to meet their expectations while still being true to yourself. I drew on my own personal experiences for that.

My dad is a worrywart. You see the scenes with Amy and her mom where her mom is worried about her living in the city by herself. “Isn’t it expensive there?” All of those are conversations that I’ve had with my dad when I first told him I was going to move to New York.

Celia: Yan [Xi], who plays my mom, is a long-time friend of mine. When I saw her at our callbacks and they put us together, she was like, “It’s you. I’m going to get up in your face.” I’m like, “All right, get up in my face.” We automatically had that chemistry and comfortability. We didn’t feel like we needed to be like, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I don’t know if I can do this and that.” Yan was like, “You’re Celia. I know what to do.”

The cool thing is my parents weren’t like what Nina’s parents are like. [laughs] But Yan was telling me how her mom treated her was basically how she portrayed my mom in the film. She was like, “My mom was really mean and tough on me. She would say that I wasn’t good enough for this and that.” She told me she channeled her mom. I was like, “I need to give you a hug. I’m sorry. You turned out great. You’re awesome. I love you.” She was like, “A lot of that came from her experiences growing up in America with a harsh mom.” I was like, “But that’s your real mom. You’re playing my stepmom.” She was like, “Yeah. I can go one step further and be meaner to you, Celia.” [laughs] Usually in the scenes when you see these tense moments between Yan and I, the second that they called cut, we were hugging.

PC: You two do such a brilliant job in the film and audiences are going to connect with your characters’ struggles and the way that you both portray them. As actors, how do you create the space for yourself to dive into those more emotional moments?
Amy: It’s different for every project. Sometimes music can be an influence—having a specific soundtrack that my character would listen to or affect her mood in that particular moment. I also tend to create imaginary circumstances beforehand and re-immerse myself in that prior to the scene.

Celia: For me, Mandy [Li] (director) actually gave me some homework to do. She made me watch this film. She was like, “There’s this Lee character in this Hong Kong film that really resonates with how Nina is feeling. You can watch the film and do a little character study.”

I was talking to her over Skype while I was in Atlanta shooting another show, alone in my hotel room. She did not tell me that it was a scary thriller! I was watching this film in the middle of the night, freaking out, covering my eyes the whole time. Every little sound, I was freaking out. It’s about this young girl who runs away from home and she’s trying to find herself. You realize towards the end of the film that the detective that’s trying to “find her” finds her, and she’s cut up into pieces and got decapitated. I was like, “Well, Mandy didn’t tell me that. Is this what’s going to happen to Nina?” She was like, “No, no, no, no. Nina’s not going to get cut up in pieces.” [laughs]

Aside from that, what Amy was saying, in my acting training, my teacher always taught us to try to imagine where this character is heading into a scene. Then he was like, “Imagine everything that you’re walking through. What are you seeing? What are you touching in that scene? So, when you walk into a scene, everything feels familiar and you’re not experiencing it for the first time. You’re like, ‘This is my home’.”

PC: Is there a particular scene that you’re excited for fans to see?
Celia: I have a funny behind-the-scenes story. On screen, the scenes with Roger [Yeh], you’re like, “Oh my God. This is such a sweet moment.” We called ourselves the Disney couple on set because Roger and I love to sing Disney songs. Every time they’re like, “Action,” we’re all lovey-dovey. Once they yell, “Cut,” I’m like, “A whole new world,” and Roger will jump in and start singing. Our sound mixer Victor was like, “Oh God, you guys again.”

I remember the last scene that we shot for our segment was a scene where you see Nina and Ian finally kiss inside the food truck. I remember doing take after take. They were like, “Are you guys ready for this?” We were like, “Yeah, we’re ready for this.” Roger was like, “Let me chew some gum and make sure I don’t stink.” [laughs] I was like, “Oh, all right. Let me chew some gum making sure I don’t have bad breath or anything.” We did three or four takes. Then they were like, “Oh, there’s this generator sound. We can’t stop. We don’t know how to muffle it. We might have to do ADR.” Then they were like, “We’ll do two more takes. If we can’t get it, this is it. We’ll wrap it.” By take six or something, the sound was still going.

In between takes, Roger and I were being silly. We were poking each other and being like, “Now, we have to kiss.” We started doing that scene and talking. We were getting closer and closer. We were kissing, and I was like, “This is a really awfully long take.” Then they were like, “What are you guys doing?” Everyone busted out laughing. They were like, “We were wondering how long it would take for you guys to notice that we already backed up the camera all the way so we don’t see you guys anymore.” [laughs] Roger and I were like, “That’s the last take. We’re done.” Right when they were like, “We’re done. We’re wrapping.” They were like, “We figured out how to turn the generators off! One more take, please.” [laughs] That’s the last take that you see on screen.

Amy: Speaking of kisses, this isn’t the most memorable moment for me, but it did stand out—the kiss between me and my partner, Jae Shin, who plays Peter. He’s the coworker who obnoxiously stalked Amy. There is a scene where they kiss, and it has to be the most awkward on-screen kiss I have ever seen and the most awkward that I’ve ever been a part of.

But I also think a scene that stands out to me is when Amy’s company is shooting a scene in Nina’s family restaurant. Her family owns a pho restaurant. She and Peter are playing a couple and they talk about the first time that they had pho and they’re describing the date—it’s a super cheesy, over-dramatized story. It makes me think of all those dating shows where people are talking about how dramatic things are. Amy ends up fainting shortly after. The stress got to her. [laughs]

PC: You’re both talking about this earlier, but when the film was making its way around the festival circuit, there was this initial misconception that this is a film that is only going to appeal to the Asian community, which is something that a lot of Asian-centric films and television programs face. While it does certainly appeal to the Asian community, it is a universal story. How do we start changing these perspectives?
Celia: I think a perfect example that’s happening right now is with Everything Everywhere All at Once. You have a Michelle Yeoh film and at its center is a Chinese family, their experiences, and eventually, she jumps into the multi-universe. But at the core of it, it’s a story about a mom who is unhappy in her marriage and doesn’t know how to communicate with her daughter. She has a falling out with her husband. Her husband is trying to hold everything in.

For years, we’ve related to films that feature non-Asian characters, but I relate to their stories. Why? Because they’re teenagers dealing with boyfriends and girlfriends and school. We’re like, “Oh yeah, we’re teenagers dealing with boyfriends and girlfriends, and all that stuff that’s happening in our school.” Why can we only relate to people on screen when it’s only one ethnicity? You change that out and people are like, “It’s not relatable?”

Now let me ask you a question. Let’s take away all the little nuances about Chinese culture, the New Years’ scene, and all of that, put in any character of any ethnicity, at the end of the day, we’re all human. We all experience the same type of emotions. We have the same type of anxiety within us. We go through all the same things. It’s time for us to open a door, not just in Hollywood, but all over the world. We’re all human. We all have human stories.

Another film that came out recently was Turning Red. I’ve seen some of the critics who were like, “It’s an Asian-based story.” I’m like, “Swap her out with somebody else. It’s a story about a coming-of-age girl feeling awkward who doesn’t know what to do to satisfy her parents.”

The main character is a big fan of the band called 4*Town. Meanwhile, when I was a kid, I was fanning out about Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, and all of those boy bands. I was like, “That’s so relatable. I don’t think you have to be Asian to relate to that.” Yes, they’re making dumplings at home. If you’re Italian, I’m sure you’re making pasta at home or gnocchi; if you’re Russian, you might be making potato dumplings. Why is it hard to relate to? At the end of the day, everything is a core human story.

Amy: Tagging onto what Celia said, it’s the universal thread of what each of us is searching for. We’re searching for love. We’re searching for understanding. We’re searching for a connection. Those are themes that anyone can relate to. You can definitely find that In a New York Minute—that’s a reason why our film should be able to translate to any audience. But also with that, I want to highlight the uniqueness of these women’s stories as well. Hopefully, this introduces some things about Chinese culture that are incidental. It doesn’t affect necessarily who they are at the core as human beings, but they are things that make them special.

I hope people can appreciate and pick up on that. Maybe there’s someone who has never had pho—I can’t imagine that because I love pho—but maybe someone seeing this film has never had pho before and this will encourage them to go out and try some pho. Maybe they’ll learn something about the culture. Hopefully, this movie will encourage that too, so that we have more cultural appreciation and acceptance. Ultimately, it’s about understanding each other and appreciating the differences, but realizing that at the core, we’re all searching for the same thing.

PC: Beautifully said. With so many timely and universal themes within this film, was there one in particular that hit home for each of you? What do you hope audiences take away after they see it?
Celia: This film is about three very different female characters who are going through three different scenarios. On the outside, we might judge a book by its cover. We see Nina is an escort and we’ll assume X, Y, and Z about her. I hope that as they learn about these characters, they will have more empathy towards them and understand where they’re coming from. Instead of judging them, talk to them, understand them, and have more empathy. That’s what the world needs right now: love, empathy, and understanding.

Amy: I would say from Amy’s story, her struggle is there’s a part of herself that she isn’t willing to share with the world. She’s afraid to share it with the world. She’s operating from a place of fear. It’s when she embraces this part of herself and has the courage to pursue the love that she wants that she’s able to fully able to be happy. You see her become hopeful rather than operating from this place of fear. Hopefully, this can encourage people to try to move away from going through life from a place of fear and move towards trying new things, accepting themselves for who they are, and finding the beauty in that.

PC: Besides this film, what’s next for each of you?
Celia: I just wrapped a film called Asian Persuasion. It’s a rom-com. It stars Dante Basco, Kevin Kreider from Bling Empire, Paolo [Montalban], who plays Prince Charming in Brandy’s Cinderella, KC Concepcion, who’s a big star in the Philippines, me, and this little girl named Scarlett [Sher], who was in Hustlers. She has so much attitude. She’s so cool. She’s cooler than everyone. In my opinion, she out acts everyone. It’s directed by first-time director Jhett [Tolentino], who’s a Broadway producer. The DP is Drea Walter, who directed Empty by Design. It’s a good group of Asian Americans working together and trying to create a rom-com that breaks stereotypes.

Amy: One of my best friends, Jeanine Flynn, and her husband, Adam Charleston, have a production company called CleoMarc Productions. We’ve done a couple of projects together. One of them, Customer #935, Emma Z., was shot during the pandemic over Zoom, which was an interesting experiment. We have a new project coming out that’s called The Sleeper Awakens where I star as a magical creature. I’ll leave it at that.

Make sure to follow Celia (Twitter/Instagram) and Amy (Twitter/Instagram). Watch In a New York Minute wherever you stream movies.

Photo Credit: Lev Gorn (Amy Chang)