Actress Kelly Marie Tran has said that working on The Wedding Banquet, which also stars gay comedian Bowen Yang, led her to come out publicly as queer.
Tran, who starred as Rose Tico in The Last Jedi, came out in an interview with Vanity Fair in November, and has now revealed that appearing in the upcoming queer comedy helped her do so.
In the new film, Tran plays Angela, whose girlfriend Lee (Lily Gladstone) is trying to get pregnant.
Lee agrees to marry her gay male friend so he can get a green card in exchange for him paying for IVF but complications arise when his grandmother arrives to host an extravagant and traditional Korean wedding banquet.
Kelly Marie Tran told Attitude magazine that she had not intended to come out publicly ahead of the film’s release but because of the positive atmosphere on the set of the film, it just happened naturally during the interview.
“There was so much queer joy on this set, whether that was from the cast or the crew. I’d never been on a set before that was very dominantly queer and there was so much joy in that,” she said.
The interview took place on the same day as the banquet itself was shot.
“That was the day of the wedding and it was so joyous…. then [the journalist] asked me: ‘What are you most excited about?’ And I sort of just naturally came out. Then I was like, ‘Oh God, what have I done?’
“I don’t think it’s something I should be ashamed of, and especially in the context of doing something where we’re getting to celebrate that part of not just my identity but many of the crew and the cast’s identities.”
Gladstone previously said that Tran gave the whole cast a candle that smelled like chestnuts and jujubes after filming had wrapped.
“The candles said: ‘Don’t Fear Your Queer’ and on the bottom, ‘when you feel like throwing a whole a*s Korean wedding instead of embracing who you really are’,” she added.
The Wedding Banquet is due to open on 9 May.
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