Evan Jackson Leong has entered the arena

The “Linsanity” director speaks out on his motivations, Mohawks, and the challenges diverse filmmakers face finding funding.

10 years after #Linsanity swept the world and thrust the then-unknown basketball player Jeremy Lin into the international spotlight, Evan Jackson Leong — director of Linsanity: The Movie and Snakehead –– is reflecting on how the world has (and hasn’t) changed its attitude towards Asian American creatives.

Leong joined Reel8 co-founder Dave Liu for a virtual conversation hosted by BEONDTV to discuss accessing opportunities in the film industry and how fans can support their favorite diverse artists.

Read or watch their conversation below.

Welcome everyone, and thanks for tuning in — I’m Dave Liu, Co-Founder of Reel8. We share the stories of struggle and success behind the iconic creators responsible for the entertainment we love.

Today we’re joined by Evan Jackson Leong: the young, award-winning director and cinematographer known for great films like Snakehead (2021), Linsanity (2013), 1040 Christianity in the New Asia (2010), and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006). If that’s not amazing enough, Evan also worked on Better Luck Tomorrow (2002), one of the great Asian American milestone films.

Evan is sixth generation Chinese-American and grew up in San Francisco, studying Asian American studies at UCLA. Welcome, Evan! It’s an honor to speak with you today.

It’s a pleasure.

Let’s talk a little bit about your filmmaking career. Becoming a filmmaker, frankly, isn’t a traditional path for many — and even more non-traditional for Asian Americans. I like to joke that there are some careers that can get you excommunicated from Asian American family; perhaps being a filmmaker is one of them…

But actually, you’ve stated publicly that your mom encouraged you to watch films and get involved in the creative process. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got started in the industry?

I grew up in a very safe environment, and I was lucky: my mother was very involved in exposing me to the arts, especially Asian arts and Asian American art. And there wasn’t that much of it back in the eighties and the nineties, but she always encouraged me to pursue whatever I felt passionate about. And she knew I was, somewhat of a… I like to draw a lot, and I was an artist… I liked to do those kinds of things. So, she would expose me to other people that were doing the same sort of arts as me. I think it wasn’t really until I went to UCLA, when I took this documentary class as a graduate film student and met Justin Lin, that I realized — there’s actually opportunity here.

These days, really any team can make a film with their phones. But back then, you know, really the only ways to get into the industry were a) you went to film school, or b) you had an aunt or uncle already in the industry. Things have changed quite a lot since then, but at the same time — they really haven’t. So for me — I had to take that step, make that leap of faith. And knowing that I had a supportive family background made it so much easier.

I come from a very privileged place, having been able to choose to focus upon the arts. But I think that, at the same time, things have changed. Now the opportunities are there for those who want to pursue them; distribution networks and the internet have unlocked so many possibilities.

I try to make it really clear to the young people who I mentor that it’s really important to find mentorship, sponsorship — someone to help you in your career and guide you.

You just mentioned Justin Lin — Justin is the very well-known director of franchises like the Fast and the Furious, who has found amazing success within the industry. Perhaps you can just tell us a little bit about what it was like to work with him in those early years, and then how that has shaped you as a filmmaker.

Those early years — I didn’t know what I was doing. I met this graduate film student who was like, “Hey, I’m making my movie. Can you shoot behind the scenes?”

And I was like: sure, I don’t know. I don’t know — I’ve never done this before.

I had never been on a film set before. He took me under his wing, and I just ate up everything. He told me everything, he taught me.

And this was someone who had spent about eight years in the film world at this point. He’d been through undergraduate and graduate film school. He already had a couple of films under his belt, so he knew what he was doing. So, I loved being around someone like that. Having a mentor is crucial.

These days, people have access to so much knowledge online that they forget that you can’t really get that experience, that advice from a mentor, in that format. you can learn everything technical that you possibly want to these days, and even story structure you can kind of learn. But there’s a certain level of feeling the emotion and passion for an industry that you can only get by having a mentor. Justin set the tone of what it meant to be a filmmaker for me. To this day, I still go by those rules he taught me in my early years.

Speaking of what you’ve learned through years of creating great films, could you give us a little bit of insight into the “sausage-making process” for you?

It always starts with an idea that is super interesting to me which then becomes a concept where I’m like, I need to learn more about this, and then: can I visualize this story? Can I find a way to tell this story that other people are gonna be interested in? Am I interested in it?

That’s usually the case with most of my projects; at the end of the day, if you’re not passionate — if you don’t care about the subject matter — then it’s gonna be a bad film. So you have to find passion in that storyline. What does it say about who you are? As a person, as an artist?

Making Snakehead was like that for almost ten years — I was still excited about it every single day. It never really went away. I knew that movie was something that I had to make.

Snakehead has an amazing story and message for the community — maybe you can speak a little bit about how that film came about. It sounds like you were working on it for quite some time, taking it from an idea in your mind to making it a reality.

When I heard of the woman in New York City’s Chinatown — Sister Ping and her story, that she smuggled hundreds of thousands of Chinese into America and had this connection to the underworld — I was fascinated by it. What really drew me to the story was that it featured a Chinese woman who seemed not to be stereotypical on any level. She was relatable to someone like me or you, who knows the Asian American community.

The way I look at feature films or any of these types of projects is: this is potentially your last project. You have to put that weight on it. If you’re gonna step up to the plate, the amount of resources, favors, and things it takes to make that film are huge challenges. If you don’t have that weight, you can easily not make it.

Snakehead was a story that I wanted to tell. I started writing the project in 2007 and we finished in 2017/18. You know, that’s ten years. Over ten years you change a lot as a man, as an artist… as a human being. There are remnants of my twenties in there. There are remnants of my thirties and, ultimately, my forties. I think that demonstrates what it takes, in terms of the artist’s journey. But I really love the process. I love the process of the pre-production. I love the production, I love post. What I’ve realized I enjoy the most is the process of making.

You’ve publicly stated that you had to go the indie route, crowdfunding at least some of the capital for that film. Can you tell us a little bit about why you decided to do that?

Yeah, we did that because we couldn’t raise the money. We couldn’t raise the money from private investment.

There was a moment where we had Lucy Liu tentatively attached to the film and it looked like we might raise the money –– but we ultimately spent about three years trying to raise the $4 million needed for production, and we didn’t get anywhere close to that kind of funding.

Ultimately, how were you able to get the Snakehead film sold and distributed?

After the film is shot, you have it edited and you show it around a little bit. You might get positive feedback — you get lots of feedback — but it really comes down to trying to have your project shown in a film festival.

A lot of film festivals turned us down. Then, out of nowhere, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival picked us up –– and that changed the course of the whole film. We were at a point where we had the finished film and just dozens of declines for festivals –– but getting to Santa Barbara was great. We had a nice home for this movie, a nice premiere — a world premiere, at a prestigious film festival.

Once we had secured the festival, we felt that we could get a buyer interested. So we worked with a sales agent, and all of a sudden we had a buyer and they were like: “we love this movie. We don’t want to change it. We like the way it is. We can sell this”.

Their support gave us the opportunity to really find this new crossover-audience which existed outside of our own communities and reach. So that was truly the moment in the movie when everything was — you know, it’s the dark night of the soul, and we get this nice little climax at the end. It was a very, very happy ending to a long, long journey.

Let’s switch gears a little bit to discuss one of your most iconic films: 2013’s Linsanity, released almost ten years ago. How did you get involved in that project and how did that story evolve?

I was friends with Chris Chan, a producer for Year of the Yao (2004), and he was like: “I’ve got your next project. There’s this kid at Harvard, he’s Asian American from the Bay Area, and he can dunk.”

I was in. So we started the process of shooting Jeremy at Harvard — just this unauthorized footage of him, you know, playing on a court at Harvard. We pursued this storyline because I thought that having an Asian American playing on the D1 level, and starting, and being exciting on the court — that was something that I had never seen before and had always wanted to see. If I were a young 12 or 13 year old and saw Jeremy play in the NBA, then I might believe that’s possible for me too.

What did you do to market and distribute the film? When Jeremy had blown up and Linsanity became a phenomenon, was it easy to get those multi-million dollar offers?

When Linsanity happened, it was like we’d suddenly become the hottest girl in school [laughs].

Everybody wanted to meet us, everybody wanted to talk to us. We held strong and made sure that we distributed the film the way that we wanted to, because we had already been working on it for two, three years. It was a point of pride that we were able to put the finishing touches on the film. We had the most amazing ending for a documentary, because we put in the time and work and took the right chances to get there.

Now that you’ve had almost ten years to reflect on Linsanity, what would you say has changed in your life? Did finishing the film send the message that you’d wanted to in creating this piece of work?

My life definitely changed after that. Artists are kind of always on a growth trajectory, but when a project blows up — like Linsanity — and you get the attention of the world, get that bigger audience, that’s when everyone starts looking at you differently. But you don’t change. It changes your life and what opportunities are presented to you — and then you hope to take advantage of those opportunities in the best way that you can.

For me, it’s been interesting to watch the world around me change while I focus on honing my art. That’s kind of what happened to Jeremy too — the world around him changed and he became a public figure, but he’s still the same guy who I met at Harvard as a twenty-year-old.

How would you reflect upon the challenges of being a person of color — an Asian American — within the film industry? How is the world that you built your career within different from that which you work in today?

When I reflect on this journey, I realize that it’s always been hard. It has never been easy. I think I just love what I do so much that it doesn’t matter, you know? If you really love something, you’ll find a way to get through it. Those feelings of struggling eventually give way to pride.

I’m happy that I’m still here struggling, and I think that’s what drives your inner artists and inner fire. But it took a long time to realize that is what this journey is. There’s no clocking in, clocking out; it’s just always hard. But when you’ve figured that out and learn to embrace it, it gets easier.

That’s the nature of this industry. I was just having a conversation about how Francis Ford Coppola funded his own movie, because no one wanted to finance it. This is Francis Ford Coppola, the guy that made The Godfather! You’d think that he could just do whatever he wants, but he can’t — we can’t — that’s not how it works.

Even at the highest level of success, these directors and filmmakers are still struggling. You have to know that it’s going to be hard; it’s always going to be a fight. Then you think: okay, that’s the way this industry works. This is just the arena that I’m playing in.

What guidance would you give to any young filmmaker of color today who is trying to be the next Evan Jackson Leong? How can they create their own content in this world?

What I’d tell them is: you have to figure out what your brand is. What kind of filmmaker are you? What kind of artist are you gonna be? What’s your mission, what is important to you? From there, you develop a sense of style and draft your own narrative of who you are.

If I look back at every movie I’ve made, they’re all stories about the underdog. We talked about Linsanity, Snakehead — both are stories of underdogs. As an Asian American, I know what it’s like to be an underdog in this country. And I embrace that; I love that. I love feeling that I’m not privileged for that opportunity. I love the fact that I had to find my own network, that I had to make my own art to get to where I am.

Where are you in your own filmmaking journey?

I’d say that I’m reaching my early-prime filmmaking era. I feel good about my position within the documentary space; that’s one arena of art where I know what to do. I know how to tell these stories well. And then there’s the fact that I’m a young filmmaker who just wants to learn more about the medium and tell more stories. So, this is just the beginning for me. The next 10–15 years will really define who I am as an artist.

What projects are up next for you?

My agents send me scripts and I go out and pitch for them. Right now, I’m looking for that narrative — the next narrative project that excites me and allows me to get up to that next level.

I’m working on a racing documentary with Daniel Woo; I’m also part of a bunch of other random projects which focus on things I am passionate about. I think that’s what you have to do — plant many seed, and wait to see which happen to sprout. The timing for each project is unique; you can’t will for it to happen. It just kind of happens.

How would you suggest that listeners might support underrepresented filmmakers like yourself?

The dollar is the most powerful way to support a filmmaker. The industry is 100% driven by money. If it were solely about making great art and sharing new ideas, then we’d have an amazing diversity of stories that we simply don’t see today. But ultimately, the stakes in filmmaking are massive. Production studios spend tens of millions of dollars on a project, then need to make it back… you know? We didn’t have a major Asian-led project until Crazy Rich Asians (2018), because they didn’t realize the target market existed.

Ultimately, you need to support artists and projects you believe in financially. Buying those tickets is the best way to support them –– not because of the individual dollar contributions, but because it indicates support from the community. That’s higher marketability; that’s more opportunity. No filmmaker that I know thinks, “I just wanna make indie films forever”. They still want access to those projects which will make them money to survive. Buying that ticket is so important in supporting the industry.

So what’s your favorite film as a filmmaker, and then what’s your favorite film as a fan?

People ask me that all of the time and I never really have a good answer, because your favorite film changes — just as you, as an artist, change and look at things differently. But I like how you presented the fact that there are two different ways to view movies, as a fan and as a filmmaker.

As a filmmaker, I’m going to go with In The Mood for Love (2000) — something that no one has seen, but which really exemplifies what I strive for in look and execution.

As a fan, there are film-films which I love to watch. The Dark Knight (2008), for one — just like everybody else [laughs].

For the longest time, I loved Big Trouble in Little China (1986). I get that it has all of the racist and stereotypical elements to it from that era, but — growing up as a young kid in the nineties — watching a film where you have an Asian lead who is speaking in perfect English really changes the way that you view the world. Prior to that film, you didn’t really ever see Asian lead in a movie who spoke English without an accent. So that was an important film to me for a long time. But again, my favorites do constantly change.

Last question, just because I’ve got to ask: when did you grow the mohawk, and how do you take care of that thing?

[laughs]

I mean, the mohawk started out when I moved to New York and was like, God, let’s just change [my hair], the whole brand — who I am. I experimented, but the mohawk seemed to be the only style that my wife liked. So, you know…. this is it. It stays.

I know that exact feeling — I grew my goatee and mustache in my thirties, and I think that it changed the way people looked at me. It seemed I’d gone from this traditional accountant look to, uh, Yakuza Hitman. And that certainly helped in my prior career, when I was working in corporate America.

As a fellow Asian American man, you know what I mean. You want to subtly stand out, because it often feels as if people think they already know you, just from stereotypes. So being able to express yourself without having to say anything, instead doing that just with your hair — hair grows. Just do it.

Absolutely. Evan, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story and discuss your amazing career. We wish you all the best in continuing to create great movies that we all love!

Thank you, Dave –– I appreciate it.

Watch Evan Jackson Leong’s full interview with Reel8 co-founder Dave Liu on BEONDTV, and register for the Reel8 x Linsanity NFT launch.

Evan Jackson Leong

Evan Jackson Leong is a director and cinematographer, known for Snakehead (2021), Linsanity (2013) and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006).

Dave Liu

Dave Liu is a 30-Year Veteran of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. He’s an entrepreneur who has started multiple companies, advisor who has raised over $15 billion for hundreds of companies, and investor in multiple billion dollar exits. He is passionate about advancing new ideas in technology and entertainment, and supporting philanthropic causes for underrepresented groups. He’s a creator who enjoys writing books and drawing cartoons.

Reel8

Reel8 is an innovative web3 platform for underrepresented filmmakers to reach new and existing fans. Reel8 allows fans to collect exclusive behind-the-scenes and directors’ cut of films, access limited fan experiences such as cast and crew Ask Me Anythings sessions, and immersive, gamified metaverse experiences. Reel8 assists under-represented filmmakers with innovative ways to distribute their art through NFTs and fulfills the promise of Web3 and the new world creator economy. Reel8 is contributing 50% of its corporate profits to the Reel8 Community Fund which will be used to financially assist under-represented filmmakers and support Reel8 community projects.

BEONDTV

BEONDTV is a Los Angeles based broadcast & digital media network curated by award-winning journalists & content creators.