Acting in Movies While Asian

WASHINGTON, D.C. –- When her script, a product of eight years of writing and polishing, won high marks from several of the country’s toughest competitions for film scripts, making it a veritable candidate for a well-heeled Hollywood production, one adoring critic however had a suggestion.

“We love your script, it will make a great romantic comedy, but we want you to change one thing –- change the Chinese leading character to an exotic character, like JLo [Jennifer Lopez]”

“No,” the script’s author, Fay Ann Lee, had retorted. “Because I don’t think JLo would grow up in Chinatown.”

As she recounted this vignette during the Q&A that followed the debut showing August 5 of “Falling for Grace,” her first film in which she is also star, director and producer, Lee looked every bit of an exotic character herself. What matters even more is that she looks every bit Chinese too, giving the film’s fictitious Asian American female lead a perfect touch of realism.

“Besides, I grew up in Hong Kong, a very big Chinatown you know…,” she added with tongue-in-cheek humor to bursts of laughter.

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