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And yet the movies most gruesome moments have nothing to do with aliens at all.
Not that thats something Yeun needs to worry about.
Are you a UFO person?Oh, Im such a UFO person.
When thatNew YorkTimesarticlecame out, I was showing everybody.
But it was weird around that time, nobody cared.
It was so strange.
It was just like, Whats happening rightnow?
But yes, Im definitely a UFO person.
Im just into hoping that theres other beings out there and were not alone.
Do you have any expectations about what contact with alien life might be like?
What happens when you get confirmation that theres life outside, even if its an amoeba?
What does that do to you?
What does that do to every structure that weve ever relied on?
I have no idea, but thats always the fascinating part to me.
So your character, Jupe, is a former child star whos now running this Western-themed amusement park.
Were there any particular real life actors he was inspired by?
And when I jumped in, Jordan really allowed for a lot of collaboration.
And the first thing I said was, I dont think he was the lead of this movie.
Jonathan Ke Quan was a big example.
This movie is a lot about exploitation.
For me, theres also an agency to it.
So it felt more right for him to be a side character in his youth.
When Keke Palmers character puts together who Jupe is Oh, you were the Asian kid inKid Sheriff!
Its recognition plus the implicit loneliness of being the one.At large, the same feeling applies.
Theres a unique sense of isolation that comes when youre just boiled down to your race.
But its a dehumanization nonetheless defining somebody to put them in a box.
And I think that feeling, that deep sense of loneliness is what Jupe inhabits.
How can you connect, really, with anybody when theres a lack of authenticity even in yourself?
Theres definitely a pathos to Jupe.
I dont know if he has had a clear sense of what had happened to him especially becauseSNLparodied it.
How gnarly it is to parody something like that?
I think hes just deeply caught in other peoples projections about who he is.
Jupe even has a side hustle monetizing his notorious childhood tragedy.Absolutely.
For me, the key that makes Jupes story unsettling is the reciprocal nature of our obsession with attention.
Were always in the throes of that.
Whos going to use it, and whos not?
And theres no judgment, its really just the relationship that we have.
Hes touching a pretty large thing, I think.
One of the other themes running through the movie is who gets to own and control images.
And then at the end, theres this surrender to just letting it go as well.
Because I think thats largely impossible.
It freaks out the world for a second, and Im into that.
Im into seeing if we can render people free of the too-oppressive gaze upon them.
Depending on the story, sometimes people need to be viewed in that lens, and sometimes they dont.
And for me, as an Asian American actor and producer, Im interested in speaking from another angle.
Thats where Im at.
What was the process of joiningNopelike?
Did Jordan reach out to you?Yeah.
Jordan hit me up, offered this role to me, and really opened the door for collaboration.
He didnt just say, Heres the role.
He made that space for me to chime in.
That feels freaky to me.
Do you have a personal affinity for the genre?I dont know if I have a personal affinity.
