Congratulations, Minari.
I'm saying it correctly? Yeah, yeah, yeah
I was blown away by this film
and I loved how much it surprised me.
I was truly surprised by so many elements
of the movie and really had
felt invested in this family. Thank you.
In an amazing way, the performances are fantastic
And I loved that
I didn't feel like
I was being manipulated as someone,
as an audience member.
Sometimes there are films that are telling me what to think
or trying to show me what I'm supposed to think.
And this is a movie that really is about a family.
Yeah.
And a family that's in a very,
it's an immigrant family undergoing,
Yeah.
These different trials and tribulations
but nothing felt hackneyed.
Nothing felt like, Oh, I've seen this before.
It was truly original.
I appreciate that.
Yeah.
Yeah you know, that was,
that wasn't like explicitly our intention or goal,
but those are things that I think
like we're natural thoughts and by-products
of what we were trying to make,
which was like something honest to,
you know, an experience that,
you know, Isaac, our director and I share, you know.
Isaac, that, that immigrant experience,
especially the Korean American one is, is, you know,
it's so wide and vast.
There's so many variations of it
but like where we want it to focus
it all was just the family
and this particular specific family.
And so we did, you know,
we kind of just held the truth of that family
and I'm so happy to know
that like everyone was able to access it.
People were able to access it and like connect
at levels of like being a father or a mother or a family.
And it's honestly, it's been kind of strange 'cause,
you know, when you're making the film,
you're very aware of how
the world and namely America
and the internet wants to talk about things.
And so we were very conscious,
you can't help but be conscious of those things.
And so for us, we were just trying to get
to the human experience of these characters
and how, how one of the things, one of the mechanisms
by which we try to do that was just like,
let's not explain ourselves.
Yeah.
Like why, like people can't see, like,
we don't need to explain ourselves, like,
especially nowadays, like if you want to be curious
about a culture or something, go look it up
or like go deeper into it or we'll hold it for you.
And you can, you can access this
but we didn't want to explain ourselves.
And what was odd about it coming out
and having it come out to the world is one,
you have no control on how it's perceived.
And, and that's a lesson that I've learned.
And two, it was hard to navigate not explaining ourselves.
Yeah.
Because like every question was like,
can you explain what this is?
And it's like, you know what this is.
It's, it's family.
It's, it's like life.
Well also people are looking for, there's a history,
you know, your nomination is, Right.
historic and that probably can feel like,
have a double edge to it, which is,
Totally.
You know, people want to say, Oh,
this is the first actor from this ethnic group.
And you want to say, well, that, that's,
that's tricky because, you know, pardon my French.
It's just a (beep) great performance--
I appreciate that, thanks.
And it's really just a beautiful portrait of a family.
We have a clip here from Minari.
I guess I can lay a little groundwork.
Your character has made this big leap
of faith and big choice to go
and realize his dream of being a farmer
and something that's a little,
it's a big ask of the rest of the family.
And one of the first things you need to do is find water.
Yeah.
And so here's a scene and,
by the way the boy in this film,
So great
Is so terrific. Yeah.
I think just, just a classic, iconic performance
by a child that people are going to talk
about for a long time,
but let's take a look at this scene from Minari.
(Speaks foreign language)
Where will the water go?
High place or low place?
Low place.
(Speaks foreign language)
There?
(Speaks foreign language)
There?
Okay,
(Speaks foreign language)
There.
Why?
'Cause trees like water.
(Speaks foreign language)
He is so great. This film was made what?
Two years ago, would you say?
We shot this film,
the road to it was crazy.
20, 2018,
end of 2018 I read the script.
And then we went into production
June the next year of 2019,
and then we premiered at Sundance, January of 2020.
'Cause that boy is now six feet, six inches tall.
Yeah, he's, he's in college.
(Conan laughs)
He's at Fordham.
(Conan laughs)
He's a Fordham (laughs),
he comes out for all the, yo. (laughs)
We missed his, you know,
we missed his best years now, he's just.
(Conan laughs)