Lucy Liu

just a master at all different kinds of languages and he really understood the nuance and we went into the dialogue and we dissected the language and made sure that it was conversational when it was in Chinese and also made the English

I don't want to say stilted, but very clear.

Because I think when somebody speaks a different language, it's much more direct.

There's not this nuance, let's say, of us going back and forth.

It's more direct.

So when it's more direct, I think there's a vulnerability that shows.

And that was something that I thought was very important to bring that humanity to Irene, to show that she was not able to really...

express herself fully when she was outside the home and also to I guess receive information from the therapist or from her own doctor when she was outside the home and I think that feeling of those gaps were really important to show how porous she was and how vulnerable she was

Were there people that you patterned or you thought about as you were embodying Irene?

Because you do transform in this film.

And I feel like I'm getting a sense of a person.

I mean, you don't seem like Lucy Liu.

Like I'm watching Irene now.

And Irene is an immigrant that is here and is experiencing all of these things.

Your parents.

Absolutely.

I think that for me, I really had grown up in that environment of seeing my aunties or my mother or my parents and just living in that world of going to Chinatown, going to Flushing, you know, the very...

immersed in that community and understanding you know that that's this was just what it was and how it looked and how it felt and I think what I really brought to I guess to Irene was not so much my parents as much as it was myself as a child watching my parents and it's a very different thing to see how my parents were at home or in Chinatown or in Flushing

and then how they were outside of that.

How would you describe it?