The Farewell, written and directed by Lulu Wang, is Awkwafina’s first starring and dramatic role and will be released this July by A24, according to Entertainment Weekly. It’s a departure from her comedic character Peik Lin from Crazy Rich Asians.
Wang’s The Farewell opened to rave reviews at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The story is largely based on Wang’s own experience. It’s about a Chinese family who goes back to their homeland to visit the family’s matriarch for the last time, who is dying from lung cancer. However, she doesn’t know she’s dying due to an elaborate lie the family has spun, which includes the visit itself; shrouded by a hastily planned wedding for Cousin Hao Hao. It’s a story about family, the immigrant experience, and the complications interwoven between that Venn Diagram.
Awkwafina plays Billi, an aspiring writer from New York City. On seeing Awkwafina’s audition tape, Wang said, “I knew that she would be able to carry the movie. I just felt like she was so natural. There was no performance. She just was the character. You could just feel the rawness of her emotions.”
Awkwafina, whose mother died from pulmonary hypertension when she was young, was raised by her own grandmother according to TheGuardian. She says of her grandmother, “My grandmother was everything to me, she taught me that Asian women are strong, they’re not meek orchard-dwelling figures. She always knew I had something, not even star power but spunk – she got me singing lessons and we didn’t tell my dad, because he’d be like: ‘Why would you waste money on that, that’s just stupid.”
Her close relationship with her grandmother may have served as inspiration for her role in The Farewell. According to Entertainment Weekly Awkwafina said of her role, “It was just really, really, a really different experience for me. Thinking about my grandma and how much she means to me, and putting myself in that place.” She also said that, “This script was something that I needed to do.”
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