Exclusive Interview: Curtis Lum Talks Reverse, Forming a Super Team for the Film, and Representation in Media

Award-winning actor and producer Curtis Lum has always been on the front lines, fighting for greater visibility in this industry. His latest project, Reverse, is an action-packed adventure whose narrative isn’t focused on a specific culture or walk of life, but rather on a lead character discovering his own self-love and coming to terms with his past who just happens to be Asian. For Lum and director Josh Aries, this is their unapologetic take on the next evolution of representation in mainstream media.

Directed by Josh Aries, Reverse follows a hardened, time-traveling hitman (Lum) who reluctantly must choose between eliminating his high-profile target or stopping the painful (and pivotal) heartbreak of his younger self happening across the room.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Curtis about Reverse, forming the super team behind the film, championing other Asian creatives, and more!

PC: You actually reached out to Josh about collaborating together. How did that initial conversation ultimately lead to the creation of Reverse?
Curtis: It was actually pretty special how it all happened. Both Josh and I are MAMM alumni. MAMM is this really incredibly fun competition here in Vancouver. It stands for the Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon. It’s under the umbrella of the Vancouver Asian Film Fest. I reached out to him because I was feeling creative. I was feeling very inspired at the time and by all the LeBron Jameses of the world. I was like, “How would you feel about creating a super team?” They have won several awards. We met up for sushi and the rest was history.

We hit it off right away. His imagination is so wild, wilder than anything that I’ve ever seen. I have my creative juices as well. We built this super team. Marc Yungco was our cinematographer. I brought on my writing partner, Paolo Valdes, who wrote the story. We had our extraordinary producer Milton Ng from Dear Hero Productions. Everyone brought their best people. It was one of the best cast and crews that I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. I’m very proud of this film and happy to see that it’s resonating with people. I’m so happy that the world gets to see it finally.

PC: You brought this project to life in a week. How were you all able to pull that off? How challenging was that?
Curtis: It’s probably one of the most challenging things you could do as a filmmaker, but at the same time, it was one of the most exhilarating and rewarding experiences of my life. I’ve done a film for MAMM Fest before, Grandma’s 80th Surprise. That was a couple of years back, so it wasn’t my first rodeo, but this one had its own challenges.

This was ten times more ambitious than Grandma’s 80th. This has action, sci-fi, romance, and drama—all packed into twelve minutes. There are multiple fight sequences and a complex story. It was very, very difficult. We shot it in four days. I don’t think I got more than twelve hours of sleep over those four days. It was crazy, but it was all worth it. Like I was saying, this experience was insane, but I built these lifelong friendships. We went to the trenches together. That’s what I value the most: the relationships that I made on set.

PC: Not only are you starring in the film, but you also co-wrote and produced it. How did your work behind the scenes impact your performance on screen?
Curtis: That’s a great question. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted and what story I wanted to tell. That’s why I love working with Paolo. He’s also my partner at Soon Films. We really bounce ideas off of each other and have this nice flow with one another. We’ve been best friends for almost a decade now, so he knows all of my little quirks and tendencies, and I know how he works. We were able to get the best out of each other.

I had a very clear idea of what I wanted as a concept and as a character, and he took it from there. He created this story overnight because you get a week to write, shoot, and edit. Everything has to be done yesterday. [laughs] I was very fortunate to be able to put my trust fully in the creative team, which mostly comprised of Josh, Paolo, Marc, and myself.

PC: Throughout your career, you’ve dabbled in action, but this is your first big venture into the genre. What was that physical preparation like? Did anything surprise you about the experience?
Curtis: To be honest, I was surprised that I was able to pull it off. If you had asked me what my dream role was three years ago, this would be it. Looking back now, I’m dumbfounded by how I was able to be a part of this and pull it off.

I have a funny little story. Two weeks before we filmed this project, I had a bruised rib—I don’t think it was fractured; I’m pretty sure it was bruised. Miraculously, I had no idea how, but it magically healed half a day before we actually filmed.

We had an outstanding stunts team led by Rorelee Tio and a wonderful stunt choreographer, Derick [Vizcarra]. Bless them. They were so patient with me. They saw how much pain I was in, and I was struggling to get through it all, but in the twelfth hour, somehow the pain went away. I don’t know if it was the adrenaline or what, but those four days of filming, I was pain-free.

We got all of those takes in one or two takes. We shot all the action stuff in a day and a half. The main dance floor sequence, we shot in two hours! It was insane. We all pretty much only got one or two takes at it. It was one of those magical moments where everything just clicked. I was surprised that it came out as seamlessly as it did, knowing how difficult it was to pull of that off with a broken body.

PC: It looks incredible on screen. We follow your character’s journey to discovering his own self-love and accepting his past. Did you draw on your own personal experiences as you brought this character to life? Why do you think action and comedy are the perfect genres to tell this story?
Curtis: I definitely drew upon my own experiences. Often when I produce films, I have to be all in or it’s a bust. It’s got to be a story that I really connect and resonate with. It’s got to be something that I wholeheartedly believe in. This is what brought Josh and I close, especially in the beginning. We both connected with the theme of wanting to be present. You can become depressed when you’re stuck in the past and trying to live for things that have happened in the past. It’s this constant anxiety that’s constantly berating us when we’re traveling into the future and we’re thinking ahead. He and I both struggle with that. That’s relatable to a lot of people, especially coming out of a pandemic. We drew from that.

We also connected with heartbreak. We’ve both been heartbroken. He’s much younger than I am, but I was heartbroken very early in my life. But that also set me on a whole different course in life. I honed into that experience and matched his. It naturally made for a perfect comedy and drama.

I really wanted to do action. That’s why I reached out to Josh, because he has this little film called Mr. James is Dead, which has done incredibly well internationally. I saw that film, and I knew right away that this was the guy I wanted to work with. We were like, “This is what you’re good at,” “This is what I want to do.”

I was training for several months to get myself in the position to be able to make it look like I could pull off some moves. We were like, “Let’s throw in some action in there.” Here we go, we’ve got ourselves an action rom-com. That’s what I had pitched him initially. I was like, “I want to do The Matrix meets Hitch.” These are two genres that we don’t often see put together. I wanted to explore what that would look like, and here it is.

PC: This film has made its way around the festival circuit, and it’s been incredibly well received. What do you think is resonating most with audiences? What do you hope they take away after they see it?
Curtis: I want the takeaway to be several things. This whole film is very multifaceted, just like our team. I want people on the surface to be intrigued by the action and the shininess of it all, but the one thing that’s making me really happy at the moment is how people have been reaching out to me and saying, “This made me think of this,” or, “To be honest with you, I need to sit with this and watch it a few more times and let it digest,” or, “What did I just watch?” That stuff gets me excited. I’m like, “Great. That’s the whole point of this short film. You want to be intrigued. You want to leave people wanting more and asking questions.

That leads me to my second takeaway. There are a lot of metaphors and symbolism embedded in this film. What’s been really cool is that for the most part, people get the main theme, but everyone has their own takeaway from it. I’m not mad about that. We intended to leave it open-ended. If people have different interpretations of it, that’s cool. That’s the whole point of art, right? It’s all subjective.

The third takeaway is that I’m really happy to be able to say that this was our way of doing Asian representation. Josh has done a couple of films that were very Asian-centric, and I had done Grandma’s 80th. With this one, we unapologetically said, “Let’s represent it in our way. That’s by doing a film that we would see in North America that’s usually led by different ethnicities.” We had all of these characters played by Asians. It was not an Asian story at all, but we happened to have Asian faces.

PC: Beautifully said. Oftentimes short films are created as proof of concept. Have there been any conversations about adapting this to a full-length feature?
Curtis: Absolutely. We’re prepared to go both ways, whether it’s a serialized project or it’s a feature film. We shall see. We have some things bubbling in the works.

PC: Great teaser. Speaking of representation, you’ve always used your platform and craft to champion Asian creatives. This industry has made slow progress to greater visibility and representation. Why do you think it’s taken so long? When did you start noticing that shift?
Curtis: Wow. To be honest, when I got into this business is when I started seeing a shift. The film that opened my eyes to visibility and representation was Romeo Must Die. I was a little kid and they so happened to be shooting a scene in the back alley of my dad’s restaurant. I remember being mesmerized by the energy of that set…not to mention, I saw these people eating at crafty for free. [laughs] I was like, “Oh my God, what is that about? I want to do that.” I was a little kid then and I didn’t start acting until much later, but that always left this imprint.

The older I got, more and more really cool Asian people started coming into my life. I think that was happening simultaneously with the media. You started seeing more and more actors slowly starting to break through. Then, that got me into acting. I’d say it took another ten years of that stagnant energy before it hit a boiling and tipping point.

That’s when people started to be more unapologetic and starting to demand change. We started to kick down doors. That’s when you started seeing your Crazy Rich Asians. Now in 2022, we have your Everything Everywhere at Once and your Reverses. I can’t exactly say when that shift happened, but it has been a slow but steady shift. Finally, it’s reached that tipping point. It’s incredibly exciting that doors are being kicked down. Everyone’s flooding to tell their stories and have their voices heard. It’s an exciting time to be Asian.

PC: What has it meant for you as a creative to push these inclusive storylines forward and knowing that there are communities who are finally able to see their stories represented in mainstream media?
Curtis: It’s meant everything. I know it sounds super cliché, but I wish I had that positive influence when I was a kid. I hope that future generations have that now. I’m starting to see it. I see young kids in the audition rooms and their parents are championing them. They’re showing up. They’re going into the audition room with the confidence of knowing that they belong there. They’re not “others” or outsiders trying to fit in, which is how I felt when I started. They’re there. They’re present. They’re kicking a**. That means everything to me.

It means that all the work that people in my generation have done and the generations before us have worked. All that pain and struggle hasn’t been in vain. It’s cool to see that. Over the last decade, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about “How difficult is it to be an Asian actor?” I always look at it like, “Yes, I could say that it’s suck. I could tell you that it’s painful. It’s been emasculating and I come home feeling like sh*t all the time.” But I choose to look at it like it’s exciting to be on the front lines, fighting this fight. We get to experience what it’s like being a part of that change.

I’ve always looked at it like that. That seeps into everything that I do, whether it’s entertaining, music, film, or fashion with my clothing line. It’s always about putting out positive messages and representing what feels authentic to me. That’s all I strive to give people that I have the opportunity to help foster in the future and pass that baton along to.

To keep up with Curtis, follow him on Instagram. Watch Reverse today.

Photo Credit: Beau Jensen