Read the July 24, 2008 interview in The Desert Sun.
Extended version:
Hollywood has come a long way, but it is not quite 50-50. It is more like 94-6.
A recent New York Times column reported that only six percent of films are directed by women.
"I think that Hollywood is really dominated by men and their vision," said director Fay Ann Lee. "I'm trying to break into an all-boys club essentially."
Lee hopes to make her mark not only as the director but also as writer, actor and producer of her first film, Falling for Grace. The juggling act was necessary to get her independent film to the screen, and now she works tirelessly to find distribution. After overcoming the hurdles of a male dominated industry, she found herself wading through murky racial waters.
"It's not so much that Hollywood is outright racist," said Lee. "It's that they're not writing good roles for minority actors."
Lee wrote the screenplay herself, centered in New York City's Chinatown with a female Asian American lead. The story follows Grace Tang, a successful investment banker, who is attempting to climb the city's social structure while falling into a convenient case of mistaken identity and an inconvenient case of love.
"I thought that my first effort should be in a genre that I absolutely love," Lee said, reflecting on romantic comedies such as Sabrina and Working Girl. "Having grown up in Hong Kong surrounded by a lot of different classes of people, I felt I wasn't good enough because my family wasn't wealthy enough. I was inspired to put a little more into the film than just dealing with love."
Lee's character manages a tricky personal life around a close family, including a mother who works in a sweatshop -- a factor that ties the idealistic romantic leads through their careers.
"There are people who work in sweatshops and need better conditions, but (want to retain) the social life and community," Lee said. "I didn't want to preach; I really do understand both sides of the coin."
She was inspired by her parents to incorporate a sense of culture and family into the movie. When her older brothers came to America to attend college, her parents moved the rest of the family from Hong Kong to Texas.
"They sacrificed a lot to keep the family together," Lee noted.
However, despite the fact that Lee always dreamed of being an actress, her parents had different aspirations.
"My parents are very traditional Chinese parents who believe in an education and job opportunities that are secure and make money," she said. "I studied finance because it made them happy."
Her business degree has been helpful in her role as producer, though that position did not come immediately. After graduating from college, she pursued her dream and found herself on Broadway with Miss Saigon. Though continually successful on stage, her agent pushed TV and film roles.
"I was not happy always playing the maid or nurse," she recalled. "They were recurring roles but not fun and a little demeaning, to be honest, after having lead roles in theater."
Taking matters into her own hands, she began writing Falling for Grace. Producers became interested as the screenplay garnered awards in writing competitions, but everyone wanted modifications, including the request to change characters from Chinese to Hispanic so that Jennifer Lopez might assume the lead.
"I think that Hollywood distributors only know how to distribute what they think people will go to and never take any risks."
"One of the most beautiful things I get to experience is taking the film to different parts of the country and meeting some incredible people," Lee said. "I wouldn't be doing this if the audience did not keep encouraging me."
Ten years after she first penned the script, Lee is personally touring with the film in order to prove that the audiences exist. She hopes that a distributor is paying attention.