The working title for Adele Lim’s new comedy “Joy Ride” was “Joy Fuck Club.”
It’s a profane callback to “The Joy Luck Club,” a multigenerational family saga that broke ground. But if “Joy Ride” builds on the legacy set by that landmark 1993 film in that nearly all of its cast is Asian, the similarities between the two end there. “Joy Ride,” which was written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, is bawdy and irreverent, more akin to “The Hangover” than to a prestige drama.
“I don’t think [the writers] realize how crazy they’ve made their own movie,” says Sabrina Wu, who stars in the film alongside Ashley Park, Sherry Cola and Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu. “Joy Ride” centers on Park’s Audrey, a lawyer who flies to China to close a deal and embarks on a madcap adventure to find her birth mother. Cola plays Audrey’s impulsive childhood best friend, Lolo, while Hsu tackles the role of soap star Kat. Wu adds a deadpan element as the sweet, socially awkward Deadeye.
As they search for Audrey’s mother, the friends tangle with professional basketball players, get high in a disastrous encounter with a drug dealer and pose as K-pop stars. The film gave the four actors their first lead roles, appearing in an R-rated comedy that Cola likes to describe as “the first of its kind.”
“We sort of tease her when she says it, because we’re like, ‘Sherry, whatever. We get it,’” says Hsu. “But it really is the first of its kind, and it’s disgusting, but it’s full of so much heart, and it’s just so fun.”
Park, who originated the role of Gretchen Wieners in Tony-nominated “Mean Girls,” says Daniel Dae Kim texted her about the film, connecting her with Lim, the screenwriter of “Crazy Rich Asians,” who is making her feature directorial debut. Because much of pre-production took place during the COVID lockdown, the actors auditioned over Zoom. Park and Cola were cast first in a process that was mired in uncertainty.
“Every step of the way, it’s been like, ‘It’s greenlit? Oh, we’re cast? What’s happening?’” Park says. She and Cola first met in person at an In-N-Out, where they talked for four hours.
“We were just so aligned in so many ways, even though we could not be more different,” Cola says. “I feel like the chemistry shines on the screen as well.”
Hsu read for the role of Lolo, then was asked to audition for Kat. To put her own spin on the character, Hsu dug into the dimensions of the soap star’s personality. “This person is fabulous and is also still raunchy and disgusting,” she says. “It’s not just the pretty person in the film who doesn’t get to be funny, but she also has secrets and gets to unleash in different ways.”
Wu says their character, Deadeye, drew their attention because the part was different from what they’d been seeing. “A lot of roles that I get sent as a nonbinary person are like, ‘This nonbinary person feels no shame. They are the hottest, sexiest, proudest person to have ever been alive,’” Wu says. “This character Deadeye is just a soft, tender, complicated person.”
Two months before the film’s theatrical release on July 7, the four presented the Gold Generation Award to the cast and crew of “The Joy Luck Club” at Gold House’s Gold Gala, which honors Asian Pacific creators. It was a full-circle moment for the “Joy Ride” cast.
“‘Joy Luck Club’ was my childhood version of ‘Everything Everywhere,’” Hsu says. “To be with them in the same room, and for us to celebrate them and say thank you — because we all impart to them and all the people that came before them that we stand upon their shoulders — I feel like the healing, the celebrating is happening very much in real time.”
