‘The Wedding Banquet’ Helped Kelly Marie Tran Embrace Her True Self Without Regrets

Kelly Marie Tran can proudly tout “The Wedding Banquet” as a personal milestone even before the film opens in theaters Friday.

Tran and her co-stars Han Gi-chan, Lily Gladstone and Bowen Yang teased their performances in the remake of Ang Lee’s 1993 romantic comedy, directed by Andrew Ahn, in a Vanity Fair feature last fall. In her interview, Tran confirmed she’s queer for the first time publicly. Five months later, she has no regrets.

“I wasn’t planning to come out at all,” the “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” actor told HuffPost. “But this film was such a warm hug of an experience. I remember thinking, ‘I don’t want to hide this part of myself,’ and how hypocritical it would be to enjoy the benefits of this experience and not share that part of me. I’m glad it happened in a way that was natural.”

It’s easy to see why Tran felt encouraged by the quirky charms of “The Wedding Banquet.” The movie follows a Seattle lesbian couple, Angela (Tran) and Lee (Gladstone), who are preparing to start a family.

When an in vitro fertilization treatment leaves them strapped for cash, the women hatch a plan with their gay pals Chris (Yang) and Min (Han), who are also a couple. Angela will marry Min so that she can access his family wealth and he, in turn, can secure a green card to remain in the U.S. and away from his stern Korean grandmother (Youn Yuh-jung). In true rom-com fashion, hijinks soon ensue.

Having explored the intersection of Asian and LGBTQ+ identities in 2016’s “Spa Night” and 2022’s “Fire Island,” Ahn collaborated on the script for “The Wedding Banquet” with James Schamus, who wrote the 1993 film’s screenplay.

The new version reflects marriage equality and the increased visibility of families reared by same-sex parents. The setting was moved from New York to Seattle, which proved pivotal to the backstory for Gladstone’s Indigenous character.

Ahn admits to feeling “daunted” by the prospect of reimagining “The Wedding Banquet” in the present day. After rewatching footage of his brother’s Korean wedding “and thinking about how, as a gay person, [the ceremony] brought up complicated feelings about culture, family and identity,” he became inspired.

“I had so many thoughts about how I might make this film for a modern-day audience and, in some ways, make it for me,” Ahn said. “Now we can get married. Queer people have to be intentional about having children because we can’t accidentally have a baby. There’s so much I wanted to talk about that was new, while borrowing the perspective of the Lee film.”

Supporting characters were also given contemporary updates. After Youn joined the cast, the “Minari” actor suggested her character be changed from Min’s mother to his grandmother, thus intensifying the generational dynamic. Meanwhile, Angela’s mother, May (Joan Chen), became an LGBTQ+ rights ally whose devotion borders on self-congratulatory.

“I wanted to portray a mother who didn’t exist in 1993,” Ahn said. “I love the idea of a mom who’s almost too supportive of her gay child, to the point where it starts to feel like, is she doing this for herself or for her daughter?”

“[May] publicly parades as if she’s the biggest ally, but she didn’t support her kid when she came out initially,” Tran said. “I think it’s an interesting way to subvert the expectation some people have when they see an Asian mother in a film, where it’s the ‘tiger mom’ stereotype.”

She went on to note: “I’m from a very conservative, religious family, so I had to unlearn a lot of that in my 20s and 30s in order to accept myself and my queerness. Angela feels a lot of pain and resentment towards her mother. I related to that experience, and I think a lot of queer people can, too.”

Watch the trailer for “The Wedding Banquet” below.

As in the original, “The Wedding Banquet” ends on a happy note for its central foursome. Ahn and Tran are hopeful the film sends a message to the LGBTQ+ community and others who are fearful of further rollbacks to their rights in the current political climate.

“How do you experience joy in the midst of recognizing there’s a threat to that joy? It’s a lot to think about,” Tran said. “But it makes me relish the moments of joy I’ve shared with this cast.”

Added Ahn: “There’s so much anxiety now, so much doubt about the progress we’ve made. I think art is an opportunity for us to be vulnerable in a safe space and, through that vulnerability, gain strength so we have more tools to make change, to protest and to prepare ourselves for the work we have to do ahead.”