Making Space: Jon M. Chu on Designing Your Own Path

Jon M. Chu is a director, producer and screenwriter. Along with both parts of the Wicked movie adaptation, he directed Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights. In a special live episode of DB|BD, Jon joins Ellen McGirt onstage at the Great Place to Work For All Summit, which took place April 10th-12th, 2025. 

Jon details how he went from  a child of immigrants with a Sharper Image film mixer making bar mitzvah videos to being discovered by Spielberg during his senior year at USC. He also talks about going from resisting making films about Asian identity to directing an all Asian cast in one of the most successful romantic comedies of all time. 

“And I knew that this was the thing that scared me the most, going back to that student short that I never wanted to touch again, to declare myself as an Asian American filmmaker. But at the same time, I was confident enough and ready in my life to do that,” Chu says about making Crazy Rich Asians. “And then I thought for my children, I want to set a new story for them. Something as optimistic and as beautiful, but prepare them for the disappointments that are on the obstacles that maybe that yellow brick road was never meant for you. But there is another road that is a little rougher, but you get to do what you want to do in that and to help build that for them. And Crazy Rich Asians absolutely had the things that I thought we could really do.”

Jon also shares lessons he’s learned from turning down Netflix, collaborating on set and owning the room once you’re in the room. 

On this season of DB|BD, we are Designing for the Unknown. Host Ellen McGirt asks visionary designers how they navigate uncertainty- whether it be technological disruption, global crises, or shifting cultural norms.

Jon’s memoir Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen 

If you liked this episode, be sure to revisit DB|BD S11E2: How Franklin Leonard is Using the Black List to Redesign Hollywood

Follow The Design of Business | The Business of Design on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. 

Transcript

Michael C. Bush I’m gonna dip my toe into the political waters just lightly. So this is a stock chart. It shows the performance of 100 best companies compared to the S&P 500. This is post-election. So election caused uncertainty and volatility in the stock market. Great Place to Work companies outperform the S&P 500 by a factor of two during that window. So in a time of crisis, our companies do better. Why would you tell these companies what to do? Why would you tell these companies what to do or what not to do? It makes no sense at all to me why you would do that. If they were destroying value, I could see why. If they were hurting people, I can see why, but if they’re thriving, growing, promoting people, taking care of communities, I really don’t understand it. If I was, could write an executive order. I’m an executive. You know, with not that much power. But I’d write too, to these companies and to the companies in this room, keep doing what you are doing. If you are drinking cold pressed juice, lighting incense, keep doing it. Now there’s some people in this room who are certainly already their best self. Let me hear from you if you’re in an ERG. These are people who are their best self, thank God, right now. These are remarkable people and employees who are doing work under a lot of pressure, got families, sick pets, and everything else, and still volunteer their time to take care of their company and to help their company become great. We need your best self right now! Everybody here, we need it right now. We’re in a very, very critical situation. This isn’t just a summit. This is a critical mass of companies that are gonna change the world. A couple of months ago, I was gonna talk about you can do business this way or that way. I don’t no longer feel that way, there’s only one way to do it. A future where business works for all. That’s it, have a great summit. 

Ellen McGirt That was Michael C. Bush, the CEO of Great Place to Work during his keynote address at the company’s For All Summit that took place last week in Las Vegas. For those of you who don’t know, Great Place To Work is an analytics firm that produces worldwide workplace rankings. And I know what you’re probably thinking right now, Ellen, I saw Jon M. Chu’s name in my podcast feed and I’m tuning in to hear all about how he made Wicked and for the two of you to sing Defying Gravity alongside Cynthia Erivo. What do workplace rankings have to do with anything? I hear you and I promise I’m not faking you out. Jon is coming, I swear, and you don’t want to hear me sing. I actually interviewed Jon Chu on stage at the For All Summit on April 10th. The conversation was so fantastic and so life-giving. I knew I couldn’t keep it from our DB|BD listeners. But before I interviewed Jon, I heard Michael’s keynote and I knew that I couldn’ keep that from you all either. Because now, especially now, when leaders openly defend the tools of business redesign, stakeholder thinking, inclusive teams, creative collaboration, all of that, that’s a different kind of music to our ears. And the 2,400 people in the audience and the many more who watch the live stream are all part of a bigger cast of characters who believe, as I know you do, that when we work that way, things get done and things get better. And that’s what Michael did for us that day. And then Jon came along and took us home. I’m still buzzing from the conversation and from the conference in general. You will hear more from Michael along with my onstage interview with WNBA legend, Candace Parker, in an upcoming episode. But first, as promised, here is Jon M. Chu. He is a director, producer, and screenwriter, along with both parts of the Wicked movie adaptation, he directed Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights and so much more. All right, that’s enough bio, let’s jump in. I’m Ellen McGirt. This is a special live episode of The Design of Business, The Business of Design. And this season, we’re designing for the unknown. 

Ellen McGirt If I were any kind of, thank you, oh yes, if I were kind of moderator at all, I would have organized you all after the Carrie concert. We would have had a dance number ready right now. I feel like this actually happens to you all the time. People just would break out into song and dance. 

Jon M. Chu These days, a lot of people, they do the war cry. They do the Cynthia, ah ah ah, all right. 

Ellen McGirt I get the piggly wiggly like just walking down the street because that they do a war cry when business journalists show up But it doesn’t feel the same 

Jon M. Chu Ha ha ha ha. 

Ellen McGirt Oh, thank you so much for being here. 

Jon M. Chu Thanks for having me. 

Ellen McGirt We’re going to talk about a lot of things today as you heard in the introduction. I also am going to be referring to this amazing book. You know I love authors. You know, I love books. I have the same advice every time. You’re going want to read this. Give this to lots of people. It’s a leadership book in disguise so what can you do? You can expense it. 

Jon M. Chu I like it. 

Ellen McGirt Oh, you have brought so much joy to the world with your work. And I want to take a quick moment to acknowledge just how extraordinary your personal story is, which we’re going to talk about today and how fortunate we are to have you succeeding in one of the most competitive industries on the planet, particularly at this time. Of course, I’m making just sort of an oblique reference to Wicked, a gloriously, lushly imagined and produced, courageous, you know, singing and dancing and caring about talking animals like courage when we need it, like adjust at this moment when all of the things that we’re thinking about and creating that make the world better for all are under attack in kind of a dangerous and scary way. Your personal story is also equally compelling, so we’re going to talk about that today as well too. That story is so compelling and interesting and beautiful that even if you had turned out just to be a regular old brain surgeon like your parents originally wanted for you,. 

Jon M. Chu They still want that for me, by the way. 

Ellen McGirt It’s not too late. It’s now too late, give them a manual and a volunteer and I think you can get it done. 

Jon M. Chu A little AI, I can do anything. 

Ellen McGirt Anything, anything. If we only had a brain, we’d go make all the jokes today. 

Jon M. Chu Hey, now. 

Ellen McGirt Make all the joke today. But this, your story is their story too. I’m going to say, Half Moon Bay, 1969, that’s a reference you’ll get when you read the book. The values that they embraced and the community they created and the family they love and cherished are a big part of the reason why we all want to dance with joy just because you’re here. And what a lovely thing that is. I want to just go back to Wicked for a second, you all know the story, the untold story of the Wicked Witch of the West, an extraordinary play and an extraordinary book. You actually saw the play when it was workshopped before it was on Broadway when you were a film student. 

Jon M. Chu Yeah, it was, so I grew up in the Bay Area in, yeah, Bay Area, in Los Altos, California. And, yeah. Oh, yes, Los Altos. My family has a Chinese restaurant there. It’s been there for now 56 years. Crazy. Chef Chu’s, thank you, thank you. Yes, you liked it, right? Yeah, It’s legendary there. And it’s good prices and healthy You gotta go there, it’s true. I have more connection. I will always be my father’s son because that’s how more people talk to me even to this day than anything else. But I grew up there and my parents, they came over from China and Taiwan and they wanted us to always, they wanted, because they didn’t speak the language when they first came, they wanted to us to be engulfed in American culture. They always told us America is the greatest place in the world. If you love what you do, and you work hard, you can literally do anything. And they were proving it, and I watched them do it every day, working every day of their lives, even to this day. And yes. And so they would take us to shows, also. My dad would be like, why are you taking them? They’re so young. I was the youngest of five kids. But they’d take us either to musical season, opera season, or ballet season in the city. And so we would always go. So that was like a tradition. And when I was in college, sort of those days that sort of passed, I was at USC my freshman year, and my mom called, yes, Trojans, we got a lot, we connect in a lot of ways out here. 

Ellen McGirt Everything you say is popular. 

Jon M. Chu Yes, these are the people. I heard a boo, I heard one boo. 

Ellen McGirt I won’t do it anymore. 

Jon M. Chu This is the end of the week. 

Ellen McGirt I won’ do it any more, I know. 

Jon M. Chu But so we went to the, my mom called me and she’s like, hey, and she had just been going through chemo and she has breast cancer but she was just not able to go out but this is the time she could actually go out again. And so she’s come back for another show. Stephen Schwartz has a new show and they’re workshopping it in San Francisco before it ever went on Broadway. And so I was like, of course. And so, I got this really special night with my mom to watch Stephen Schwartz’s new musical. And I remember just being blown away, not just because this is a time for me and my mom, but it was also the Wizard of Oz, this story that was so near and dear to our upbringing of this America being this yellow brick road and this man behind the curtain that was gonna give you your heart’s desire if you did the right things. And so that was always, but to… But to watch this show and to watch them unpack the stories that we were told, that my parents were told and to see the Wicked Witch in a new way and a new perspective just was so cinematic to me, it blew me away. I thought someone’s gonna make an amazing movie of this one day. I just never thought it would be me. So it was kind of crazy. 

Ellen McGirt And then you got the call during the pandemic at the height of your power. 

Jon M. Chu Twenty-something years later, yeah. 

Ellen McGirt Oh my lord. I want to go back to your upbringing just briefly before we move on because Ruth and Lawrence, the stories are just amazing. Years of tap dancing lessons, they dress you like the- your mother referred to you as the Asian Kennedys. 

Jon M. Chu Yes. She would call me Jon Jon. 

Ellen McGirt You, in fact, and your sister were named after an iconic American TV character. 

Jon M. Chu Jennifer and Jonathan Hart from a show called Hart to Hart. So it was very important to them, the media apparently. 

Ellen McGirt And yet, for all of that pressure to be excellent and to be immersed in the culture and also be successful, it was a Sharper Image catalog that turned your head. 

Jon M. Chu Yes, so I was looking through a Sharper Image catalog as a young person would do those days. There was amazing stuff in it. And I feel like they have like hover crafts and things. Anyway, this day I was through it and I saw this little mixer that you could connect your VCRs to and your stereo to. And I had been shooting stuff because my parents made me carry the camera because I’m the youngest. To any of, whenever we were around. So I would shoot my brothers and sisters and we’d have this pile of tapes. We still have these pile of tape around, but this mixer, I convinced my dad for like, I think it was like $199. 

Ellen McGirt That’s real money back then. 

Jon M. Chu That was real money for, I think I was 11 or 12 years old, to get me this mixer. And I remember calling him at work at like 10 o’clock at night. He’s like, aren’t you supposed to be asleep? I was like, I know, but I can’t sleep. This is a cool mixer. Can you get it for me? I’ll make all these videos for you. The restaurant, I promise. I’ll making cooking videos for you. I never made one of them. But, I did make Crazy Rich Asians, which I think you can, but. 

Ellen McGirt A love letter to your family. 

Jon M. Chu Yes, yes. But getting that in the mail changed everything. Nobody knew how to do it. I couldn’t ask my parents. It was confusing to me what wires go in where. But I got the VCRs from all my brothers and sisters’ rooms, and we connected it, and I added song to it. I made something all night long, and I got my parents to sit down on the couch and watch it the next day. 

Ellen McGirt And they… 

Jon M. Chu And when they watched it, I remember exactly the moment they were watching, and I put it to like Oldies music, and they’re watching this, our family, like a regular American family with Oldies’ music to it, and they just started to cry. And I remember never having that effect on anybody, and not even really felt like I was heard in any other way, and it just hit me like this, there was something about this medium that I felt very connected to. I could express myself in this and I never stopped. I fell in love right at that moment. 

Ellen McGirt So after some normal back and forth with your parents about what you want to be in your life, they endorse your idea to go full bore into the film business. And you end up going to USC and having an amazing time. And a couple of important things happen to you in there. One is your student film, When the Kids Are Away, was spectacular enough to get the attention of an agent, William Morris, and a very prominent film director. 

Jon M. Chu Yes, so it was a musical, which all my teachers told me at that time, don’t make a musical. If you want a job, this is like 2001, we want to prepare you to get a job and musicals are dead. This is before Chicago came out at that moment, and well, I made it anyway. And then, yes, and that project got a lot of attention and Steven Spielberg had got it on his desk. And called me and had me go meet with him, which was a dream. And when Stephen does that, the whole industry sort of like listens and says, who’s this kid? And so that’s where, sorry, he bought a project from me. We never actually made it, but that was sort of my entry into USC. But it was interesting. Before that movie I had done, I had gotten the senior thesis project and they only chose four directors to do your senior project, they’re called 4 AD. And I was like, I’m making one about my Asian American identity. And it was called Guilo and also a mini musical. And I, I was so self-conscious of making it because I’d never actually like talked about being Asian before. And I didn’t know how my class would react. And when I started shooting dailies, the students would be like, well, did they really call you that? Did they really do that? And it made me question, maybe I’m being too sensitive and maybe that didn’t exactly happen, but that felt like that. So when we made the movie, it got a huge response, but I didn’t send it to film festivals, which you’re supposed to do. I didn’ get it out to go get attention from it because I felt so ashamed by my, because I didn’t know if it was the right message that I was trying to say. And so I sort of buried it and went right into this musical, new musical idea, it was about the secret life of mothers. And that musical is the one that got the attention from Steven Spielberg and all these things. So I sort left this, this. Void, this blind spot in my life, was able to sort of let it go and move on and I was rewarded for doing that in a weird way and that would stay with me for many many years of not visiting that thing ever again. 

Ellen McGirt The Asian part, you called it your Asian cultural identity, which so many people experience, the people of Asian heritage, it’s where do you fit into cultures? Do you fit in to no cultures? Do you become the Asian person in everything that you do? Do you come the Asian director? And in fact, the project that you had commissioned with, Steven Spielger commissioned with you, was a hip hop version of Bye Bye Birdie, which I would still love to see one day. 

Jon M. Chu Yea. 

Ellen McGirt It did not get made and there was a period of darkness as all Hollywood heroes must experience and out of the darkness comes Step Up 2. 

Jon M. Chu Yes. So. 

Ellen McGirt Right? 

Jon M. Chu So, you know, the business is a little bit nutty and you’re only as good as your last thing, but when you get discovered, usually people have done music videos, commercials, other independent films or something, but I won the lottery. I got discovered by Steven Spielberg. And when you’re actually getting the movie together and I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m 22 years old, after a few years, the development, as they call it, development hell. Sort of takes hold and you don’t actually make the movie. And that is very hard. And I was attached to a bunch of different movies. To a point where I got new managers at the time who are here tonight, Alan and Brian, somewhere in the audience. I’ve been with them ever since, but they were helping me find sort of what my first thing would be. And Steven Spielberg was like, be very careful with that first choice. That first choice is everything it defines you. And so it was very scary. And at the same time, I’m like, but I need to eat. And I’m telling these new managers, I need something to prove myself. And so they sent me a couple of things, but one of them was a sequel to a dance movie called Step Up. And it was supposed to be direct to DVD. And I told them, yeah, I don’t do direct to DVD because I got discovered by Spielberg. And I told my mom this, and the managers were like, of course, of course you don’t do DVD, of course. And I called my mom this and she said, when did you become a snob? I said, what do you mean? She’s like, if you are a storyteller, you can tell a story anywhere. You should be able to tell it on stage, in a commercial, on DVD, or by a campfire. And that really drilled into my head. And I was like, you’re right, I’m in the NBA, but I’m on the bench, I need two minutes. And if I wanna play in the NBA, I gotta play in the NBA. And so I was, I am gonna make the best damn direct-to-DVD dance movie sequel of all time. And I redid the script and pitched it to this company. Disney had distributed the first movie, but because it was direct-To-DVD, they weren’t distributing this one. But when they heard that I was attached to this, two weeks later, they asked for a meeting. I pitched to Orin Aviv, who was the head of the studio there. And within 20 minutes, he said, we have a slot for this movie next year to go in theaters. And can you get it done in nine months? 

Ellen McGirt Isn’t that great? 

Jon M. Chu Yeah, it’s crazy. 

Ellen McGirt It’s my favorite of the franchise. 

Jon M. Chu Thank you, thank you. 

Ellen McGirt And then a slew of very interesting things happened, we’re gonna fast forward a little bit, including the Justin Bieber documentary, which was incredible, and you were part of a dance crew for a while. 

Jon M. Chu Yes, I wasn’t dancing in the dance crew, I was making the videos for the, yeah, but yes. 

Ellen McGirt Well, in my mind, you were sort of dancing behind the scenes. But just to know that you do have moves, you actually were a mascot in high school. 

Jon M. Chu Yes, yes, I was a mascot.  

Jon M. Chu I was a panther. We were the Pinewood Panthers, and I do have to say, there is something about putting on the mask. There’s something about putting on hands and the feet, which are padded. And when I am in high school, and the reason why is because I was in charge of the halftime shows, and nobody, we had redone our cheerleading squad, I had gotten like DJs to do the half-time show, and… But nobody wanted to be the mascot. I’m like, if we need to, we got to close the deal here. We got to have a mascot. It’s like, I’m going to be in the mascot, so I went to spirit camp. I got the school to buy a cool outfit and I got in the thing and it is, there’s something magical because the way everybody looks at you is the way you wish you were always looked at. Everyone invites you in towards them, kids come and hug you, parents love you, everyone wants it. I mean, you’re a celebrity and you can do anything. You can dance terribly, but people laugh and people love it. And I will say that there was a parallel between that and a camera lens, no doubt. When I had a camera around, when I have a camera round, people open up and they let you in. It was at my VIP pass to any place. And so there’s a similar parallel line in those two worlds. 

Ellen McGirt But thank you. 

Jon M. Chu But thank you for bringing up being a mascot. 

Ellen McGirt I want to jump to Crazy Rich Asians because that’s when things really get real on so many levels for you and for us. You call it the film that really outed you as a director, and it was enormously successful. Highest grossing film over the August weekend debut, the U.S. Box office over those first five days, a million just sort of benchmarks, a beloved book with a name that not everybody loved or understood and also was launched into a world. Where Asian-American actors and talent were becoming more public on social media and other places about bigotry and stereotyping and lack of representation, and later on, violence against the AAPI community as we got into the COVID years. But this amazing, gorgeous, lush film just was born into an environment where we were starting to have a conversation between AAPI members and allies about identity. Tell us about how all of that came together and how it worked to support the film. 

Jon M. Chu So right before I was doing a movie called Now You See Me 2, which was like my third sequel of a movie, and I was working with some of the best actors from Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, it was an amazing group of people. And I remember for all the movies before, I always felt like I was like playing catch-up, trying to figure out how to work it and get what I needed. I always had a studio sort of there, and But I remember shooting with these actors, these amazing actors, and one day feeling like I could feel my 10,000 hours hit. I was like, oh, I deserve to be here, and I can hang. And that switch made me look at everything differently, and suddenly I’m like, I love this movie, I’m having a lot of fun, but anyone could make this movie. And why am I spending my time here? And again, I loved that movie, we had a great experience, but it was really important for me during that experience to realize, who are you now? If you know how to do this, then what do you want to say? And at the same time, there was the Oscar So White stuff happening. There was a Starring John Cho tag on Twitter, which was, they put John Cho on movie posters as if he was the lead of Mission Impossible or all these movies. And you’re like, oh yeah, that could actually happen. But that has never happened. And it sort of made you question why. And I remember being like, yeah, what’s wrong with Hollywood? And then I realized, oh, I am Hollywood. Like I’ve been in those conversations where they’re like, oh, you can’t cast that because that doesn’t sell internationally. Hey, you, can’t do this because the audience wants this or that. And I was young, you sort of fall into the trappings of what they tell you is the business. And I realized I may be the only one at this moment because I’ve proven myself in the commercial world and the commercial movie world that I could take a story be very commercial with it, but at the same time, cast it in a way and have talent in a way that has never been done before. I knew I could walk that line. And so I was looking for what that could be. And my mom, my sister, my cousin, sent me this book, Crazy Rich Asians. And in reading that book, it was the story of Rachel Chu, an Asian-American going to Asia for the first time. And I understood what that was. I understood what it felt like to go to Taiwan and feel like whoa, everyone looks like me so I don’t get strange looks, so I feel like they’re all my cousins, so they’re treating me differently. And then they also call you a foreigner, foreign devil. And then you’re like, oh, I’m not a part of this either. And I love that this was going to be this delicious travelog movie and we could make fun of ourselves and our own culture. And that anybody could watch it was going to be food porn plus romantic comedy, but at the center of it, it was gonna be not how much you’re worth, but your self-worth. And I knew that this was the thing that scared me the most. Going back to that student short that I never wanted to touch again, to declare myself as an Asian-American filmmaker and not be scared anymore that people could box me in and just send me Asian films or anything like that, which still sort of happens. But at the same time, I was confident enough and ready in my life to do that. I was also my… I was about to have my first child. And so everything about story switched for me, about the story of the world that was taught to me by my parents. About America being the greatest place and this yellow brick road and this person that was gonna give you your heart’s desire if you followed all the rules. And I had gone through so much that some of the story I didn’t believe anymore. And then I thought for my children, I want to set a new story for them. Something as optimistic and as beautiful, but prepare them for the disappointments that are on the obstacles that maybe that yellow brick road was never meant for you. But there is another road. That is a little rougher, but you get to do what you want to do in that and to build that, help build that for them. And Crazy Rich Asians absolutely had the things that I thought we could really do. And also when you have Asian, American or Asian from all around the world, comedians, brilliant actors, all that are not being tapped, you have a deep well of talent that’s being ignored. Like a cherry pick. Yeah, great. The Avengers of Asian talent. 

Ellen McGirt Oh my gosh, wasn’t that, oh my God. And the thing, and the thing that really continues to impress me to this day, all of it, is just beautiful to hear from your lips, John. Thank you, you’re giving us such a gift today. But that you had the foresight and the courage when Netflix was the thing. Netflix was a thing. 

Jon M. Chu It’s still the thing, by thte way. 

Ellen McGirt Yes, I did not declare Time of Death on Netflix. I apologize. But at that time, it was the new thing and it was a new powerful thing and everybody wanted to be on the platform. You decided to make, and you advocated for a different choice. Tell us why. 

Jon M. Chu Yeah, so we thought we were going to make Crazy Rich Asians independently. Like, we didn’t think any studio would be really into it. But as we’re developing it, you could feel the studios sort of curious and sniffing around. So we were like, OK, let’s let’s go around town. Let’s pitch it. So we show we pitched them what it was. And I had this whole deck sort of laid out what it was. And the two people who were chasing us was Warner Brothers and Netflix. And it came down to sort of a bidding war between the two. And Netflix was like, Jon, if your intention is for more people to experience this amazing, talented cast and to see the Asian diaspora in this way, Netflix is the place. We go all around the world, millions and millions of people, tens of millions of of people day in date. For that subscription price, so they’re gonna have access. Warner’s was like, we have theaters, not as, you know, but, I guess that was it. They have theaters. Apparently, when we were making them bid against each other, we waited a little long for Warner Brothers, so they’re basically fed up. They’re like, on this date, we’re gonna make our final offer, and you have 20 minutes to reply. Otherwise, we pull the offer. So on that time, at that date, Netflix knew we were coming, so Netflix made their final offer. Warner Brothers made their finally offer. I’m on the phone with the, like, 20 lawyers, plus our producers, because really, the producers have the say of where we’re going, and the author, Kevin Kwan. And we get on this call and we’re debating the two things. And Warner Brothers, because we had waited that week, decided to offer us less money upfront. So now it went from a movie, a studio that offered less than they did last week, no guarantees of a sequel or anything, Netflix sort of guaranteeing the, of course, marketing push that they can do and development of future sequels and obviously all the eyeballs. And when we sat down and talked about it The producers said, you and Kevin get to choose. This is, your story is so important to you guys. You tell us what to do. We take the money, but you tell us to do it. And it was really hard, because I’m looking at my backyard, which was not a very nice backyard, and all I wanted was to take that really nice upfront Netflix money and redo my yard. And I’m talking, and we started talking about value. And we’re talking about why don’t we take a piece of the percentage we make from Netflix and donate that to Asian American media companies. Right, but the whole reason you do that is so they can get to this moment right now to decide who gets to play on the big screen. And we also realized like we’re all in good spaces financially and professionally, like if anyone, we could take the bet. And so we made the decision to forgo the Netflix and say, the thing that we’ve always been missing is the value of you pay upfront and you get the privilege to sit in the dark and we get time to tell you a story. It’s like, we get to be in the museum for the first time with the fancy label and the $20 million, $50 million marketing push at a studio would give to this cast. And so that was really important for us. Whether people showed up or not, we knew the opportunity to bet on the world and bet on our movie that we can make it entertaining enough that they would show up. And if that worked, then it would break the dam. That was the bet that we took on each other. And when the movie did come out. Oh, thank you. 

Ellen McGirt Right? Did you see it in the theater? 

Jon M. Chu It works. Thank you. The best part is at that that opening weekend Going into the lobby to see if people show up by the way we couldn’t give away free tickets for the test screenings because Asian people were offended by the title and other people didn’t think it was for them So we were very scared when it was coming out but that opening week and it came out and People came out. The second weekend they came out even more and the best part was going into the lobby and all the Asian people who dressed up and it was there bringing their grandparents and they all would congregate in the lobby. They didn’t want to leave. And they would just talk about it. And their friends who knew nothing about Asian culture were talking about, oh, what did that mean? What’s mahjong? Ha-da-ba-ba. And then, of course, every weekend it just kept staying around. And then I got my backyard. So everybody wins. It’s not about that. But it’s a really nice pool.

Ellen McGirt It doesn’t hurt. You got all those kids. I want to read something that you wrote that got my attention: “When I reflected on the movies I’d made”, just towards the end of this amazing book, “I noticed a pattern. The moments I was proudest of, that audience had responded to the most, tended to be the moments that my collaborators and I worked out together.” You give a couple of examples, I forgot to mention GI Joe, and the lunch scene in Crazy Rich Asians. “Those moments had worked because the process had worked. I had carved out space and allowed time for creative breakthroughs to happen and for all of us to make one another smarter and more inventive.” That is an extraordinarily inclusive way at looking at managing a very complex and a very expensive project, a business, and it can’t be as easy as you made it sound. Can you talk through some of the examples of where collaboration really worked and where you struggled? And where may you continue to struggle.

Jon M. Chu I think it’s, you know, at these kind of where we’re all together talking about, yes, collaboration is the way, it’s so great, and just include everybody, but in real talk it’s really hard. If you start to open up that door, people start to run you over, people think you’re nice and they start to take advantage of you, and they do all these things, and the hardest part is staying the course of collaboration. And staying strong in collaboration, setting horizons, but also knowing the power of when it’s bigger than your own idea, that it’s better than your idea, that that is like the ultimate goal. And so, you know, collaborating is something I, when I first started making wedding videos and bar mitzvahs, it was just me, like my camera, my editing all night. Put the music on, I do all that stuff. When I started doing studio films, it was really hard to work with an editor because I just wanted to get in there and just edit. But I was sort of forced to, because I was young, I thought, oh, this is the way it was, but I’m so glad I went through those first few movies. I had great editors, but I got to watch them, and it forced me to learn how to communicate, not how to do the cut. But the story I’m trying to get to in the cut, it forced me to talk to costume designers. I don’t know about dresses and stocks and hairstyle. I don’ know anything about that. But I could say this scene’s about yearning and that she feels out of place. So whatever you need to do in your costumes to make that feel, or whatever we need to in our camera, help me tell that. Like, I picture one shot like this, but maybe that’s not the right shot, maybe there’s a better one that you can come up with. And so when I started to understand, when my communication skills got better, when I start finding the right words, and it’s really difficult at first because I didn’t have the right word, I didn’ know, sometimes I would dictate instead of try to find, again, sort of the carrot to get people to invent new things. To me, that took five, six movies to get to, and maybe that was that moment in Now You See Me where I felt like. I understood the key unlocked and it was like, it’s I’m not a storyteller when I released my movie, I am a storyteller at every part of this process. Raising money is storytelling, all of it. And when I embrace that, when it comes from my mom’s words, if you’re a storyteller, you’re storytelling in anything, it changed my whole process. It became about process completely, not the destination of the movie. And it also took the pressure off of I wonder if the audience is gonna like it. It became about everything, I’m focused on what we’re trying to say through the story and by the time they finish the movie, we have done the task and if the audience gets it, if we’ve done our job, hopefully the audience does get it or a certain segment of the audience gets it, then that will be that. So I think that collaboration, it is the most difficult thing. You sometimes feel like people just wanna run you over and I, and sometimes you’ll have to let that happen so that you can keep the task on. But, and we never talk about that. But I think it’s really important because what I believe is the future of collaboration, the future great work. You know, if you have a great place to work and the end thing isn’t what you all wanted, I don’t know, that’s not why I wanna work necessarily. I wanna have the great place work and us be so proud of what we just did that I think you can have it all. And so and I’ve been very lucky because every time you do a movie you’re basically creating a new company with new people and you’re re-establishing culture so I’ve got a lot of practice on how to establish culture,  what I need to say up front so that we don’t have that problem later, what kind of people I need to have get on board what kind of vision we need to share so that when we do move forward, we’re all working in lockstep, I’ve gotten really good at that. And I think that that to me is the key to collaboration, well, I think it’s doing it over and over again but I think setting, setting, getting the right people in the right place. Knowing that you are trying to achieve great things. I think they can work together. 

Ellen McGirt I do too. Two quick things before I let you go and I do have to let you go and it’s going to be a tragedy for all of us to lose you. This has been such a wonderful conversation. What grade would you give your industry in terms of inclusion and diversity because it’s like that you were coming up as as these conversations are very serious conversations we’re tracking it we’re happening. Where would you what grade would you give Hollywood right now and what direction you think it is going in? 

Jon M. Chu Listen, when I started to now, it’s so different. The culture is different. The demands, what was accepted is different, and for that, I feel very grateful that I got to live through this time and not through the time when I’ve started and watched some of this behavior that now the culture of it is you can’t do that shit anymore. Like I’m very proud of where that is. Is there like a ton more to do? Yes. That’s just on work culture. In terms of like subjects and what kind of stories we’re telling, I think there are two factors that are playing into that. I think they’re a lot more leaders, people in leadership positions who are able to change things and make big bold choices now. Like, you guys out there? But I also think that the audience decides. Like, they can blame Hollywood all they want. But when an original movie comes out there and you don’t show up, guess what the sign is? Don’t make those movies. And there’s been so many great original movies with actors and subject matter that are different and the audience doesn’t show up. In a weird way, Hollywood is a reflection of us and who we decided to support. So it’s hard to blame an executive who’s just trying to keep their job. With something like Crazy Rich Asians, because it made money, we saw more movies like that. And we saw those actors lead movies. And we need more of that, and that just, we got lucky and whatever, whatever. But like, to me, that’s… I think as leaders in whatever industry you are, I think we have to be great. And that sucks, but I think you have to great. Because when you do it, I think it you’re not forcing it down anyone’s, you are forcing it by example of what it is. And I know it’s tough and I’ve had some tough conversations with some executives who literally I was like, we had a lead actor who’s Asian that was supposed to cast and he came to me and he’s Asian. And he’s like, listen, dude, we gotta hire these kind of actors, this other actor. I’m like, but they’re not Asian. This is written for an Asian person. I was like bro, you’ve got to get in there. You are the one in there, you gotta fight for this. He’s like man, I’m just the DEI hire dude. And I was, like, what? You think of yourself as that? I was like, you are in the room. You should not think of yourself at that. If you already think of that, then you should just quit. You should just be out. You are in that room. You have a responsibility. That was a hard conversation to have. Maybe someone like that is not ready for that job. But I do feel like if you’re in we have to do as a society to change our own industries, then it’s going to take that kind of courage to speak up and to do those things. I know it’s not easy. I’ve been screwed on many of those things, but maybe one or two things we’ll get through. 

Ellen McGirt We’re gonna have to end there. If you’re in the room, own the room. Jon Chu, thank you so very much. This has been such a delight. 

Jon M. Chu Thanks, everyone. 

Ellen McGirt I will join you. 

Jon M. Chu Thank you 

Ellen McGirt Love you, Great Place to Work. It’s been such a great Summit. Thank you again. 

Jon M. Chu Thank you, thank you, go Panthers! 

Ellen McGirt The Design of Business |the Business of Design is a podcast from Design Observer. Design Observer was co-founded by Jessica Helfand. Our show is written and produced by Alexis Haut. Our theme music is by Warner Meadows. Justin D. Wright of Seaplane Armada mixed and mastered this episode. Thanks to Sheena Medina, Sarah Gephardt, Rachel Paese, Richard Fields, and the entire Design Observer team. And for more long-form content on the people redesigning our world, Please consider subscribing to our newsletters, The Design of Business and The Observatory at designobserver.com.