WHAT IS YOUR CAREER MISSION, AND HOW DOES IT PROMOTE FEMINISM AND SEXUAL/GENDER/ETHNIC DIVERSITY? (AND WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW THAT IS IN LINE WITH THIS?)
I’ve create my own opportunities as a producer, a fledgling director and writer. As for acting, I haven’t been offered a ton of roles—I’ve had to make them.
It makes me so sad now to think of all the postage, legwork, and train fare wasted during my first couple years in New York. No one wanted to see me as Honey in Virginia Woolf, or Masha in Three Sisters, and the cool kids of my generation of playwriting weren’t fucking with a non-size 0 dark-skinned black woman.
Telsey saw me in Clare’s play (I’ll Never Love Again at the Bushwick Starr) and cast me in Second Stage’s production of Man from Nebraska. It’s a part written for a black woman. She’s British, a poet, and struggling. There are some ideas of color that swirl around, but this is a part that isn’t about my blackness. I’m so grateful to Tracy (Letts) for writing a part for someone who looks like me.
It’s also only started to happen recently that I’ll play characters in which my sexuality is not ignored or shoved under the rug. Between Man from Nebraska, Unicornland, An African City and I’ll Never Love Again, it’s been a year of sexy roles.
I am a queer artist of color who believes in the power of identity politics and being the most I can be so people can see us as human beings, fully fleshed, you know the way we look at white people all the time. I'm an actor/singer-songwrite/theatremaker/creatorand i like keeping my channels open because I am drawn to work on projects that really give me that "I have to work on this!!!!!" feeling in my gut. I set my dope north star and I follow it and the projects either fall under my dope North Star or they don't and that's how I decide what I work on. I created {my lingerie play}: ten underground performance installations in my lingerie that culminates into a concert in my lingerie about my lingerie and why I started standing in the streets in my lingerie. Currently I'm working on Toshi Reagon's adaptation of Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower.
I had to grow into an understanding of what that the words “feminism” / “femininity” meant. Not just nail polish and pretty things, but a very holistic approach to life. An emotional, energetic fluidity that affects how I interact with others. In the past, I’ve worked on more male-oriented projects, but recently I’ve prioritized work by, for, and about women.
As an actor, I’m currently performing in The Oregon Trail by Bekah Brunstetter. As a producer and developer, I’m very engaged with The Kilroys, and with APF, which has recently awarded many notable female playwrights.
We’re in a time right now where women are going to have to push so much more above and beyond what you would normally want to do because we’re in the building times. And it directly affects generations after.
That problem of women being passive applies to sexuality and to career stuff. No one can make your career happen for you but you, but sometimes you’re so embarrassed or doubtful you stall. Or maybe you don’t even know what you want, or what’s on the table. Instead of taking a supportive stance, I’ve started to ask myself, “what do you want," and going from there.
Also, representation matters. Reading about the new Star Wars movie, I cried when the Asian characters were introduced. It was so rare for me to see anyone who looked like me in a movie like that. It still feels magical. When people watch Unicornland and see me—see diversity, different body types, and a spectrum of gender and ability—it’s so important.
All arts is political. As an Asian woman, me existing in something is a political statement.
I just did a PSA about Girls Who Code that was funny and silly. But on tech scout with the key crew, I was the only woman in the van. I was like, “wait a second, we’re doing a PSA on how hard it is for women to break into a male-dominated work force and here I am, the only woman in a van full of men working on the project?” The director was a woman, thank god.
I came out 5 years ago and dealt with that in many ways. I’m single, not in a “taboo relationship." There’s nothing out there that shows actual stories of people who happen to be queer living their lives. You have really soapy queer stuff like The L Word, or shocking stuff like RuPaul’s Drag Race, or tragic stuff like Brokeback Mountain. I’m currently working on a film about a real-life narrative of queer identity. I hope that any work that I do or am involved in helps fill that role.
I want to be rich. I want to be successful. I want to be influential. I hate that there’s stigma around this for women. There are a lot of rich men in my peer group, and not very many rich women. I want to be a leader in my community, someone to whom young women can come to for advice, to hang out with in a warm safe space, and receive hospitality and support just because. Young men get that kind of support from older, more established men; for young women it’s always mixed up in sex.
I started a business last year, and and am working hard to build my company, establish connections and create work.
For a woman, a career in cinematography is a lifetime commitment to feminism.
There’s a lot that needs to be done to change the old dynamic, diversify the industry. We all have to take accountability for the way our industry functions.
One issue at the forefront of the industry is that the higher the budgets on a film, the fewer women we see in positions of power. Hearing the statistics can be disheartening, but the numbers are changing and we must continue to have an open conversation about gender equality in both film and the world.