Attending APASA’s “A Conversation with Stephanie Hsu”

By: Hannah Skinner ‘23

For those of you who missed it, the legendary Stephanie Hsu came to campus on April 5th. During the presentation, she shared her personal story of navigating the acting industry from theater to commercials to Everything Everywhere All At Once. 

It was an honor to be in Stephanie Hsu’s presence that night. Suffice it to say she was graceful, bright, and caring. I noted the genuine eye contact she made with the students asking questions and how she never failed to ask their names. Top this off with her eloquence, relatability, and open and honest answers, and it was inevitable that the audience was charmed. 

In light of Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, the topics of the conversation included navigating the film industry as an Asian American, creative expression through characters like Joy in Everything Everywhere All at Once, and, moving forward, the expansion of storytelling in cinema to be more inclusive and genuine. Both Stephanie and I learned a new term that night too – APIDA – which stands for Asian Pacific Islander Desi American. 

Stephanie started her career doing theater and commercials but never imagined a long-term career in the arts. However, the work she does is so captivating that her success is more than befitting. As for getting into this industry, she gave advice about finding your people and strengthening your community. It is important to surround yourself with people who support you and advocate for you, and it’s equally important to know how to protect and center yourself when the industry gets toxic. This is sage advice that can be translated into any career path.

With regard to Everything Everywhere All at Once and Michelle Yeoh’s recently won Academy Award for Best Actress, Stephanie described the feeling that her community, “... officially has a patch on the quilt of cinema.” Everything Everywhere’s accomplishments and impacts are incredible and a product of a century of change in the industry. For Stephanie, playing the character Joy was “healing” because she finally learned that she is not alone in the intergenerational trauma she has experienced. It was healing to know that so many people saw bits of themselves in Joy and fulfilling as a creator to express feelings that the audience held too. Stephanie also described the beautiful moment of taking her mother to the premier where she saw herself reflected on the screen for the first time. 

Moving forward with film, Stephanie sees Everything Everywhere All at Once as an opportunity to begin diversifying stories even more. There needs to be caution around getting trapped in the same stories and not being able to progress out of them. APIDA cinema can be about so many things, and Stephanie sees the future not as a time for regurgitating the same stories and trauma but as a tool for devising new and truthful stories that have the power to sculpt the world into the place we want it to be. Through a balance of combating some and encouraging other behaviors and norms, representative storytelling has world-changing power. Stephanie is excited to tell some of these stories, hinting that she has more projects currently in the works!

In a fun moment, after being asked, Stephanie said that her most memorable scene acting in Everything Everywhere was the parking lot scene, and her favorite set was the Wong family apartment because it felt so familiar to her.

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