1. Poem everyone should memorize?
“Pablo Neruda’s ‘Ode to the Onion’ (1954). I find his adoration of simple objects appealing. It springs to mind when I’m cooking.”
2. Recipe everyone should know?
“Italian ceci, or chickpeas. They should be roasted or fried, so they’re crispy, and garnished with nothing but salt and pepper.”
3. Go-to chocolate?
“Why eat chocolate when you could eat an apple? That’s how I feel.”
4. Greatest onscreen performance?
“Charlotte Rampling in Andrew Haigh’s ‘45 Years’ (2015). I watched it in preparation for [Celine Song’s] ‘Past Lives’ (2023), and it was the first time I understood the surgical precision it takes to do naturalism.”
5. Best movie no one’s heard of?
“ ‘The World of Love’ (2025) by this Korean director Yoon Ga-eun. The subject matter is difficult — it’s about a 17-year-old victim of sexual assault, and it manages to be devastating while brimming with joy.”
6. What about a play?
“Matthew Chong is still in his final year of Yale’s playwriting program. I’ll go with ‘Lessons’ (2023), which takes place at a music conservatory. It’s a psychological drama in which a teenage prodigy is forced to decide how much she’s willing to give herself to greatness.”
7. Show tune you know every word to?
“I sing ‘I Feel Pretty’ [from Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s 1957 musical, ‘West Side Story’] on days when I don’t.”
8. Memorable live musical performance?
“Usher in Paris in 2023, 100 percent. He was singing and sweating and roller-skating and stripping, all at a very, very high level.”
9. Back-pocket karaoke pick?
“ ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ — the [1996] Lauryn Hill and the Fugees version, not the [1973] Roberta Flack one. That’s been my choice for decades, though I’ve partly retired it out of respect for friends who’ve heard it too many times.”
10. Role you’ve always wanted to play?
“I know I’m not Chinese American, but if anyone wants to do a Wendi Murdoch biopic, I’m raising my hand.”
11. Favorite flower?
“Easy. The Matilija poppy. It’s a California native flower — the one that looks like a giant fried egg. In that sense it has no dignity, but I just love it.”
12. Nicest fabric to wear?
“I’ve stolen my mother’s vintage silk blouses. They’re all from the ’80s and by brands like St. John or Escada. The silk is aged, likely sweat stained, almost threadbare, but when I wear them I feel so close to her.”
13. City with the best style?
“New York. No other city has this unique blend of people caring so much about what they wear and also not at all.”
14. Myth you enjoy?
“There’s a Korean oral folk tale called ‘The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon,’ about this hungry tiger who’s planning to eat an entire family but stops when he hears a baby crying. Then the mother tricks the tiger by mentioning a persimmon, which he believes is a monster. A lot gets lost in translation, but it’s one of the most well-known Korean fables — my mother grew up with it; my grandmother too — and I appreciate its long-lasting absurdity.”
15. Unforgettable building?
“Budakirkja (1848), or the Black Church of Budir, in Iceland. It’s this all-black structure in a [moss-covered] lava field, and so dreamy. I went there a decade ago and tried to use the bathroom.”
16. Building to live in?
“This is the most annoying and bougie answer but, if I could be an old lady, retired in Manhattan, the penthouse suite of the Greenwich Hotel is where I’d like to live. It’s a convenient location and it’s tricked out, so let’s just assume I’m nearing the end of my life and deserve these luxuries.”
17. Greatest onstage performance?
“Billy Crudup in ‘Harry Clarke’ (2017), a one-man play by David Cale. Billy played something like 19 different characters. When I went to see him do it, I was considering doing [the TV series] ‘The Morning Show,’ which he’s in, and his performance was so virtuosic I decided I’d do anything to work with him.”
18. Favorite museum?
“The Picasso Museum in Paris and the Museum of Hunting and Nature — they’re just a few blocks away from each other, and I consider them a package deal. My favorite thing I’ve seen at the former was a 2023 show where [the French artist] Sophie Calle covered up Picasso’s paintings. The Museum of Hunting and Nature has the most unique collection of taxidermy, and my favorite things there are the drawers of fake animal poop.”
19. Restaurant dish to try?
“The chicken from Zuni Café in San Francisco. It’s just roast chicken with panzanella, but it’s perfectly done.”
20. Director to watch?
“Wong Kar-wai. He’s singular in terms of his visual style and what he’s achieved in the medium.”
21. Most visually influential film?
“If it isn’t [Wong Kar-wai’s] ‘In the Mood for Love’ (2000), it’s Richard Linklater’s ‘Before’ trilogy. When I watched ‘Before Sunrise’ (1995) as a young person, it helped me to appreciate the beauty of everyday life.”
22. Enduring Shakespeare work?
“It’s between ’Romeo and Juliet’ (circa 1596) and ‘King Lear’ (1606), but whereas most people age out of infatuation and suicidal, star-crossed love, competing for your parents’ affection and money is timeless.”
23. Nicest furniture piece?
“A pair of 2022 chairs that were carved from Douglas fir by the artist and designer Minjae Kim — one for each of my sons. He’s subverting what I would call traditional Korean lacquered furniture. If you look closely, you’ll see that each chair is shaped like a person.”
24. Unforgettable painting?
“My grandfather grew up on a ranch in South Korea and was a billboard painter during the Korean War. He also made all these incredible paintings of ranchers and horses. One of them can be seen in the very exclusive museum known as my living room. It’s of a Korean cowboy wearing chaps and a white cowboy hat, sitting on a horse that’s midair.”
25. Relatable fictional character?
“Do you know the character Santiago from [the 1952 Ernest Hemingway novella] ‘The Old Man and the Sea’? He’s a Spanish fisherman in Cuba, and he’s dreaming of his homeland while navigating his experience as an immigrant. This sprang to mind, delightfully and disturbingly, and I was laughing about how much I could relate to this man spending days trying to kill this marlin, only to have it eaten by sharks. He has such perseverance and dignity in the face of defeat, which to me is a metaphor for the lifelong pursuit of art- and filmmaking — how slippery it can be, and the devastations.”
26. Top New York movie?
“It’s called ‘Late Fame.’ It hasn’t come out yet and I’m in it. I’m so proud of this movie, which was written by Samy Burch. Willem Dafoe plays a postal worker who was formerly a poet and revives his relationship with art later in life. I play a middle-aged aspiring theater actress. She’s a type of woman I feel is dying out — the original New York diva.”
27. Memorable monologue?
“Me doing ‘To Be, or Not to Be’ from ‘Hamlet’ (circa 1601) in my theater class as a sophomore in college. Because it was so humiliating, it was moving. I was sick of seeing so many of my male peers do it and was attempting a ‘step aside, boys’ moment, and then I just bombed. It’s actually incredible I survived that moment and am now an actor.”
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Hair by Johnnie Sapong at the Wall Group using Leonor Greyl for Benjamin Salon. Makeup by Grace Ahn at Day One using MAC Cosmetics. Set design by Peter Klein. Production: Hen’s Tooth Productions. Lighting director: Timothy Shin. Digital tech: Mike Preman. Photo assistants: Ricky Jhou, Kendall Pack. Set designer’s assistants: Jared Zagha, Ronnie Burress. Stylist’s assistants: Hannah Schatzle, Avantika Nehru
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