Get an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Interior Chinatown with showrunner Charles Yu and executive producer Taika Waititi! In this captivating interview, Charles shares how he adapted his award-winning novel into a groundbreaking series, while Taika provides his unique perspective on bringing fresh, bold stories to life on screen. Discover how this dynamic duo tackled themes of identity, culture, and representation, and hear their reflections on the creative process that brought Interior Chinatown from page to screen. Whether you’re a fan of Charles’s literary genius, Taika’s visionary storytelling, or just love compelling television, this conversation is a must-watch!
Hi, Taika. Hi, Charles. I’m from Dorkaholics, where we believe there’s a dork in everyone. It’s our responsibility to bring that dork out into the world. So my question is, with the novels and adaptations for live action series, there are some evident changes that may need to be made for a live action adaptation. Can both of you walk us through what the discussion was like between the producer of the TV series and the author of the novel in regards to bringing that to life?
Taika Waititi: Well, luckily he was the same person. And, so we just let him have that argument between himself and then we would support him and come in and help [by asking] ‘so what’s your vision for this stuff?’ Yeah, my job really as an EP and as a director on the first episode, it was just to help set up the world, set up the tone for the show, and really start getting specific and making decisions on what these things look like and who the actors would be to play these roles. When you write a book every reader is going to have a completely different person in their mind who they see as Willis. But then us casting Jimmy [O. Yang], he is now Willis Wu. And you kind of get away from that, sorry, but you’ve got to make decisions and that’s part of the adaptation process.
Charles Yu: To piggyback off what Taika’s saying, it started with developing the pilot and trying to figure out how you could translate one medium to another, and it ends up being many, many conversations, because what I put on the page is just sort of like the first suggestion of what this could look like to the production designers, to the DP, to Taika, to the actors, and then it becomes a very collaborative thing of like, how do we actually bring this to life rather than have it be a bunch of ideas. Make it flesh and blood people that you really care about.
