Lana Condor is a fresh face of change in Hollywood
Breakout star Lana Condor opens up about what it was like being thrust into the limelight after the success of her Netflix movie — like the time a girl started screaming at her while she was shopping for a t-shirt.
Movies
Don't miss out on the headlines from Movies. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Fame can sneak up on you in Hollywood — just ask Lana Condor.
The breakout star of Netflix movie To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was thrust into the limelight when the romantic comedy, based on the popular book of the same name by Jenny Han, became an overnight sensation.
Condor, 21, who was born in Vietnam but adopted as a baby by American parents, soon realised life might now be a little different.
“I was shopping for a T-shirt the other day and this girl screamed when she saw me and everyone stopped and stared at her,” she laughs. “She was pointing at me and screaming ‘Oh my god, you’re the girl from the movie!’ and then she ran away from me and the whole shop was just staring at me.
“Those little things had never happened to me before so I’m just adapting.”
But Condor says for the most part, she’s tried hard to keep things as they were before. She still hangs around with the same friends and family time remains an important focus. Of course there are always a select few who make things a little awkward.
“A lot of people have come out of the woodwork who didn’t give a shit about me before so that’s been an interesting experience as well,” she says with a laugh.
Condor’s big break is significant given the obstacles faced by many actors of colour.
Much focus has been placed on a lack of diversity in Hollywood in recent years and a recent study by the University of Southern California Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative found that of the top 100 movies of 2017, 65 had no Asian or Asian-American females in a speaking role. The study also found of the top films of last year, just 12.1 per cent of actors were black, 6.2 per cent were Hispanic and 6.3 per cent Asian.
Figures like these show the odds are against actors such as Condor from the outset. The idea of a young Asian-American landing a leading role was such a foreign concept, the 21-year-old had just “settled” with herself that it wouldn’t happen.
“I’m still fairly new in my career in this industry and of course it was frustrating and unfortunately when you don’t see opportunity or representation you kind of think that’s the norm,” she says. “For me it wasn’t this massive frustration that I had, it was more that I just kind of settled with ‘this just isn’t going to be an opportunity for me’.”
Being cast as Lara Jean Covey in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was an awakening for Condor.
“After getting To All The Boys, my perspective changed a lot because I realised I didn’t even know what I was missing until I got it,” she says. “I think before getting cast, I was just used to the way that Hollywood was working and I thought that was the only way.”
With the success of her show and that of Crazy Rich Asians, which has so far pulled in more than $US200 million ($276,000) at the worldwide box office and accelerated the call for more racial diversity in Hollywood, Condor believes movie powerbrokers have no choice but to take note.
“It would be really hard to ignore the success of both movies and I want to believe that there will be a change,” she says.
Greg Apps, one of Australia’s top casting directors who is credited with discovering actors Russell Crowe, Jacqui McKenzie and Rachel Griffiths among others, agrees that the industry is moving in the right direction.
But as someone who has been working, first as an actor and then in casting, for many years, he acknowledges it hasn’t always been that way.
“I remember I was casting an ad and I was in Melbourne in the mid-’80s — and they said ‘great casting, but next time just lay off the ethnics’,” he says. “They were talking about the Greeks and Italians. That’s how white bread advertising was.”
Apps, who has been involved in some of Australia’s best known movies and television shows, says there was the same view in television and some actors would have found themselves restricted to very stereotypical roles.
“If you ask actors like Nick Giannopoulos, they would have started their careers playing greengrocers and delivery truck drivers or something like that,” he says.
But he agrees with Condor that the film and television industry is improving. He points to one of this country’s premier performing arts schools as an example.
“I can remember going to NIDA graduations in the early 1980s and it was interesting to see the cultural mix that they trained,” he says. “It was ‘white bread’ because there was
little point in training actors who there were no jobs for. Now you’d be surprised at a graduation that didn’t have a great cultural mix.”
Condor is buoyed by this kind of change and says producers have shared with her that they are determined to continue the push to make Hollywood more diverse.
“I’ve already talked to so many people who are in the industry who are really excited and who support furthering representation and writing more amazing three-dimensional characters that aren’t based on stereotypes,” she says.
“I really felt a responsibility to represent who I am and my community and what I believe in.
“I’ve always felt that responsibility even when I wasn’t an actor but now it means more to me and the weight is a little heavier.”
Condor is making the most of the opportunities her new-found fame has opened up. She will star alongside Jennifer Connelly and Michelle Rodriguez in cyberpunk action film Alita: Battle Angel, which is produced by Titanic director James Cameron and based on the manga Gunnm series by Yukito Kishiro. She will also appear in television series Deadly Class and sci-fi thriller Warning.
But there’s one actor the young star would do anything to star alongside.
“It would definitely be Emily Blunt, I am so obsessed with her,” she laughs. “I just watched Looper and she was amazing in it. I so admire her career because she has crossed over literally every genre and she’s so successful in every single one and that’s a goal of mine — I’d love to not just do one genre but do an array of them.”
And while she already has one thriller on the cards, she wants to do something just a little bit different.
“I’d love to do some weird kidnapping thriller,” she says. “I know it’s pretty dark but I haven’t been challenged in that way yet so that would be fun for me.”
TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE IS NOW STREAMING ON NETFLIX