Adele Lim says she used to write and speak like a Victorian maiden. She was seven years old, living in post-colonial Malaysia, and the books she read and shows she watched were mostly from Britain or the US; artifacts of imperial and colonial legacies. These voices— different from hers in culture, gender, and most other lived experiences— shaped the voice she used in her early writing and, later, to break into Hollywood. After 15 years of creating stories about people who didn’t look or sound like her for some of television’s most popular shows, Adele was asked to work on a movie she loved but was sure would never be made. The success of Crazy Rich Asians proved to Adele she could write for her people, her community, and her culture. More than that, it showed there was demand for it. Her journey of embracing her heritage has led her to make two more huge Hollywood hits, and has proven highly relatable to many people who find themselves as 3rd (4th, 5th?) culture kids, members of any kind of diaspora, or looking to tell their story in a place that doesn’t often make space for it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for written format. A longer-form audio version will be released later this year.
KESHIA HANNAM
When you think back to your childhood, can you find traces or threads of that creativity now, back then?
ADELE LIM
I always knew I wanted to be a writer. Growing up in Malaysia, it's this meeting point of many different races and ethnicities and cultures and religions. You have three major races, you have five or six major religions, all the languages. There's this interesting feeling of being amidst all of it. But you’re also aware that none of those cultures are the prevailing, dominant culture of the world. Most of what we consumed was British, or American TV, magazines, music. It all just came from a faraway place that seemingly had no awareness of my culture, or people who looked like me.
KESHIA HANNAM
Why was that? Was it a post colonial thing?
ADELE LIM
There is a little bit of that post colonial, you know, mind fuckery of like, somehow that culture is aspirational or superior in some kind. That’s not the point of view I have now, but it was at that time. I wrote even in my earliest stages in this weird manner, mimicking British authors. I wrote like a Victorian maiden aunt as a 7-year-old Malaysian.
KESHIA HANNAM
So you've been doing this from the beginning: writing stories.
ADELE LIM
Yes. And I don't think I ever put it in my head like, oh, that's why I wanted to be a TV or movie writer, because it was never in my frame of consciousness that that was even a career path until I got to school in the States. I think from early on, I just assumed I would be a poor novelist. I had this very romantic idea that I'd be like this novelist, living in squalor, you know, surrounded by dogs.
KESHIA HANNAM
So then you kind of go through your school years, and your talents and your passions are clear. You're kind of writing wherever you can. You're writing school plays, chorals.
ADELE LIM
Oh, and early on I had a job. I was a teenager writing for the Malaysian national newspaper, these op-ed, young person pieces. I had a weekly column, where I was just writing. And this was also influenced by the American writer, Erma Bombeck. I would write these things about my family. And, it'd get published every week in the paper.
“the point of it is not to make sure that you're being portrayed as somebody who's respectable, thoughtful, doing all the right things. The goal of it was to fucking entertain.”
KESHIA HANNAM
Were you nervous to share that about yourself? Or did your family ever tell you, “Adele, that's for the family. Don't share that publicly”?
ADELE LIM
You know, god bless them. I haven't thought about that in a while. But yeah, the things I would share about my family were embarrassing, you know, especially when I talked about my father doing his Elvis impersonations in a fucking sarong. By the way, probably taking a page out of David Sedaris, I'd embellish so much of it. It's the truth, but then you know, you just heightened certain things because like, come on, people. We're going for readability here. I'd also write about boys that my girlfriend's dated, who were like Satan worshippers and weirdos, and I got into a little bit of trouble for that.
KESHIA HANNAM
I'm drawing the parallels between how real and raw Joy Ride is, and how that was maybe incubated in these years, writing this op-ed where it's very unfiltered and not shameful in a way I think a lot of Asian people feel.
ADELE LIM
That's an astute parallel. I think definitely, the need to entertain was there. That feeling that if people were reading anything I wrote, I wanted them to have that the same feeling I have, when I read authors that I loved, whether it was fiction, or comedic, like slice of life pieces, that the point of it is not to make sure that you're being portrayed as somebody who's respectable, thoughtful, doing all the right things. The goal of it was to fucking entertain.
KESHIA HANNAM
Was that countercultural? Where did that permission come from?
ADELE LIM
You know, I don't know where the permission came from. Now that we're talking about it I feel like I need to write a big thank you note to my mother. I think it came from reading American and British authors, because you're certainly not seeing it in Asian authors at the time.
KESHIA HANNAM
So you finish school and junior college in Malaysia and then come to Emerson College in the US for university…then what happens? How did you get into Hollywood?
ADELE LIM
I finished university and I have no money and my parents want me back in Malaysia at all costs. Meanwhile, much to their dismay, I had rejected religion and shacked up with a white boy. And I didn’t even have the good sense to do it quietly. He was going to move out to Los Angeles and try to be a television writer. That blew my mind. I thought, you can do that? You can just drive to Hollywood and work in Hollywood and be a TV writer? That sounded so much more appealing than going back to Malaysia.
So, we bought a shitty car and drove across the States. And the reason I didn't have that much stress about it is because I was young and stupid and ignorant. And I just want to really emphasize the importance of being young, ignorant, and a little naive, because you need to be. Had I known, had I had the emotional and intellectual maturity to understand how hard a journey it would be, the chances of my success, et cetera, I don't know if I would have ever embarked on it. But you know when you’re young and you feel like the world is your oyster, you kind of need that level of blissful stupidity.
KESHIA HANNAM
So you were really hustling. Like wherever you can get a job, you're getting a job and were you still with this with this dude? Are you still living together?
ADELE LIM
No, it’s not like we were together for a long time, but did get married and then divorced. It's funny, we came to LA because he wanted to be a TV writer. He ended up becoming a professional poker player for a bit and I'm the one with a career in entertainment.
KESHIA HANNAM
He was like the gateway that led you to this path.
ADELE LIM
Yeah, it's all the things your good Asian parents tell you not to do, like you know shack up with like a young guy early on. But if it wasn't for him, I don't think I would have caught up pop culture wise. Because to be able to write in a Hollywood writers room, you need to be able to just get it very quickly. You don't want to be the weird foreign chick. Yeah, the fastest way to catch up with any culture is to shack up with somebody.
KESHIA HANNAM
So at 21 you were a writer's assistant on Xena. Then, your first staff writing job is at 26 on John Doe. What happens between that and Crazy Rich Asians?
ADELE LIM
That's about 15 years. I came up through the school of television, which was a great school to come up in, because that's the area where writers have the most agency in Hollywood. We are the showrunners. And that means we oversee all aspects of production, like pre-production, production, overseeing the writers rooms, and editing.
I think I wouldn't have the career I have now if it wasn't for that process. You learn to not be precious about things. You learn that there's no such thing as one magic special idea that will make or break you.
Ideas are cheap, anybody can come up with an idea. It's about if you can execute it well, in a timely manner. It wasn't until I got to be a higher mid-level writer that I kind of came into my own. I got to pick the shows I wanted to work on versus having the shows pick me. And then I could pick shows that had a more diverse writing staff, were run by women, had a lot of women and people of color, or people from the LGBTQ community.
KESHIA HANNAM
What's interesting about this is that you're also seeing an industry start to change in terms of who gets to tell the stories and who's in the writers rooms. Do you remember going into any situations or writers rooms or hearing of any shows and being like, “Oh, I want to work on that.” Or, “I don’t want to work on that?”
ADELE LIM
When I got to that midway point, I became a mother and was feeling very out of place in that industry because it is not built for working parents, or working mothers specifically. But I worked for a female showrunner, who was my age, and was very supportive of me. And that was the first time I ran a writers room. Again, that was about me building my skill set, feeling confidence in my voice, and working with people who valued my creative input. I think that was a big turning point for me.
KESHIA HANNAM
What was driving your motivation at that time? That's a lot to put yourself through and your new baby through. What do you think was your north star at that time?
ADELE LIM
I don't think it's anything I consciously thought about, I think it was probably the way I was raised. My mother was a working mother. My grandmother was a working mother. And none of it was easy, but they managed it all. In America, you can't afford a lot of hired help and there's not really that community familial support available to you. But that's not what you're thinking. All you're thinking is you just have to go be excellent. You have to kill it, and make sure motherhood doesn't slow you down.
But also you want to be an excellent mother and make 70 caramel dipped apples for Halloween trick and treating while you're on deadline. I would go to children's parties, with a script in hand, find a quiet corner, and be working while kids are singing “Happy Birthday.”
“Crazy Rich was the first time I was writing about a world I knew intimately, and characters, who seemed like people I grew up with, and not feeling any sense of shame or feeling that that voice and that point of view had to be disguised or processed for a different audience.”
KESHIA HANNAM
So many people know you as the writer of Crazy Rich Asians. Does that feel like where your identity, as well as your talent and years of hard work and experience, kind of came together?
ADELE LIM
Crazy Right Asians was the first time I felt like I was firing on all cylinders, not just professionally, but also creatively. I felt I found myself. Before that, I thought I came into my own professionally, but I was also very, very burned out. I spent 17 years writing for characters that looked nothing like me. And I wasn't even conscious of that until I wrote for Crazy Rich Asians. I was putting the sum total of my whole life experience into this weird prism so that it could be said by a white man and have it still feel emotionally true. I always mimicked somebody else's voice. Crazy Rich was the first time I was writing about a world I knew intimately, and characters who seemed like people I grew up with, and not feeling any sense of shame or feeling that that voice and that point of view had to be disguised or processed for a different audience.
KESHIA HANNAM
When you got the call to work on the script, how did you feel?
ADELE LIM
I remember feeling that if I didn't do it, that somebody else would do it, who didn't know the culture and I would feel so angry. I was excited by the material. The story excited me; I knew the aunties. My family wasn't rich, but my family was 100% crazy. All the aspects of it: the food, the different dialects, the family dynamics. I knew that I could. I also knew that, especially with a title like Crazy Rich Asians, it would be easy to be like, “Oh, look at those crazy, insane, ‘other’ weird Asians doing weird things.” Jon Chu and I didn't want that. We wanted people to be able to feel for the characters and identify with them versus laugh at them.
"Being able to write something that was so close to me, emotionally, felt as easy as breathing. I remember having that feeling like, “Oh my god, is this what white writers feel all the time?”
KESHIA HANNAM
So you work on it, it does indeed get made, it gets released, and it's incredibly successful. How did that feel personally and for your career? How did it make you think about your own identity and the work that you wanted to prioritize?
ADELE LIM
Well, being able to write something that was so close to me, emotionally, felt as easy as breathing. I remember having that feeling like, “Oh my god, is this what white writers feel all the time?”
KESHIA HANNAM
From Crazy Rich Asians, how did Raya and the Last Dragon–that you were the lead writer on–and then Joy Ride—which you co-wrote and directed–come about?
ADELE LIM
I think Crazy Rich Asians, Raya the Last Dragon, and Joy Ride— even though they're three completely different movies— are all part of each other and part of my journey of finding my voice and how one story evolves from the next.
Walking away from Crazy Rich was very much documented, but I'm so glad I did it. If I had stayed with it, I would have been doing a disservice to what the movie was, which was giving us visibility, giving us relevance, and putting us on an equal playing field. For me to accept so much less would just have been an affront to everything that that movie achieved. But I love the movie, the franchise, love Jon Chu, and all the actors. I want Crazy Rich Asians 2 to happen and I want all that success for it.
I was fortunate in that I could walk away from it because I was already on board with Raya and the Last Dragon. I grew up with Disney. The first movie I ever watched was Snow White. The idea of being able to create a Southeast Asian kick ass warrior princess, now that I was a mother and I have a daughter, this opportunity was tremendous. I get a lot of credit sometimes from, “Oh, she walked away from that’. Yes, I did, but I also was just very fortunate and lucky I had something to walk towards.
Behind all my projects is also this feeling of normalizing our experience. That's kind of like leapfrogging it to Joy Ride, where we have a major Hollywood movie. It's an R-rated comedy, and we can be as nasty and gross and spicy as Seth Rogen and everyone else because that's how we are.
KESHIA HANNAM
Where did Joy Ride come from?
ADELE LIM
In the way that Raya was sort of a result of Crazy Rich, Joy Ride was a result of working on Raya. Disney was an amazing experience but my natural place is a little raunchier, grittier. Almost like a palate cleanser to Raya, I would just have Cherry Cheva[pravatdumrong] and Teresa Hsiao over to my house and we would break story. We’d put cards up on a board, just breaking a story that we wish we had, when we were coming up in our 20s.
We love Seth Rogen comedies, we love r-rated comedies, anything by Judd Apatow, 40-Year-Old Virgin, or Good Boys. Like we love The Hangover but we're never part of it. And so we were like, well, what would that movie look like?
KESHIA HANNAM
Joy Ride to me represents a rite of passage in Hollywood: we're here, we can be nasty, we can be funny, we have sex, we do all the things everybody else does. We're not this perfect little unbreakable box. That happened with Hangover, and then with Bridesmaids, and then with Girls Trip. And now with Joy Ride. They all have a similar cadence. How do you find something like that within you?
ADELE LIM
The common thread from Crazy Rich to Raya to Joy Ride was that it had to come from a place of joy. It had to come from an authentic place, and not the issues of just diversity and representation. I learned in my years of being a television writer, the moment you start creating from a place of fear or messaging, you start getting paralyzed by the process, you lose your North Star. Even if a part of that is fueled by fear or uncertainty, it would get really unfun very fast. What we do is so subjective, you have to have a clear vision for it and believe, joyfully believe in it.
KESHIA HANNAM
What do you feel like ahead for you? Are there stories that you want to bring to life now that you've done these three successful, very authentic pieces? What is next now you're in this new version of your identity?
ADELE LIM
I'm in the early stages of starting my own production company with a friend of mine called 100 Tigers. We started it because we just wanted to be free to pursue and tell the stories that we want to. And part of me is always kind of writing for the young girl I was back in Petaling, Jaya Malaysia. I was watching these shows, in a world that I had no connection with, but they spoke to me, they brought the whole world to me. Those are the stories I want to tell.
