A Producer Who Clearly Did Not Read the Title Wanted to Cast Crazy Rich Asians With a White Lead

Constance Wu. Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

Kevin Kwan’s novel Crazy Rich Asians is about a Chinese-American woman who travels to Singapore with her boyfriend and experiences serious culture shock. Naturally, one of the first Hollywood producers who approached Kwan about making a Crazy Rich Asians movie asked if Kwan might reconceptualize the story with a white woman as the lead. “I was like, ‘Well, you’ve missed the point completely,’” Kwan told EW in an interview about the movie. “I said, ‘No, thank you.’” Eventually, Kwan found the right producing team in Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, who “felt it was really important to tell the story and to have this message and to have that representation out there. That was in 2013, way before the whole Hollywood whitewashing movement happened.” Now, Crazy Rich Asians is coming to movie theaters next August, directed by Jon M. Chu, with an all-Asian cast led by Constance Wu, who will definitely be much better than whichever Emma or Scarlett that producer wanted to cast.

A Producer Wanted Crazy Rich Asians With White Lead