Five years after she gave us the heartbreaking comedy-drama The Farewell — which catapulted her into the mainstream with Golden Globes and BAFTA nominations — filmmaker Lulu Wang is back.
Collaborating with lead star Nicole Kidman, Wang now brings to us the six-part limited series, Expats, based on the best-selling novel The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee. Wang’s own multicultural background made her an ideal fit to direct the project when Kidman was scouting for someone to adapt the novel.
Set in 2014 Hong Kong around the time of the Umbrella Movement and political protests, Expats is centred around the lives of three American women — Margaret (Nicole Kidman), Hilary (Sarayu Blue) and Mercy (Ji-young Yoo) — whose realities intersect in the wake of an unexpected tragedy. Exploring themes such as class, privilege, race and gender, the show seeks to derive answers to questions around morality and culpability, as secrets are unfurled and bonds are shattered.
Lulu Wang | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
It might sound like a far cry from the gentle yet devastating little gem that was The Farewell, which was about a granddaughter travelling to China after discovering her grandmother has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, but trying to keep it a secret from her by organising an impromptu wedding before she dies. Still, Wang, who also serves as an executive producer on the series with Kidman, seems to have risen magnificently to the challenge of directing Hollywood A-listers after having predominantly worked with rising stars earlier. A classically trained pianist, she has also contributed to the soundtrack of the show.
Similar to the gap between her first two features — Posthumous (2014) and The Farewell (2019) — Expats arrives five years later as well. “The magnitude of the project was enormous — it’s a six-and-a-half-hour series — and we shot it like a film. I directed all the episodes, and it was essentially like making six films. It definitely took a lot of time, and then we had to figure out all our scheduling and traveling in the midst of the global pandemic,” remarks Wang over a Zoom call with us.
How has her definition of the term ‘expats’ changed after filming this project?
“Hmm, let me put it this way; my understanding of what people think of ‘expats’ are commonly western, white, wealthy people of privilege. When they travel, they are there temporarily; there is an impermanence to the time they are there. And of course, they often experience privileges that the locals don’t get, as opposed to an immigrant, migrant worker or many other types of people who travel often from a place of necessity or circumstance,” says Wang, whose parents migrated to the US from China when she was six years old; her mother was a cultural critic and her father used to be a Chinese diplomat in the Soviet Union.
A still from ‘Expats’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Starring powerhouse performers such as Kidman, Sarayu Blue, Ji-young Yoo, Brian Tee and Jack Huston, the series was brought to life by an all-female writers’ room; how did that influence how the project shaped out? “Well, it definitely wasn’t my intention to only work with women on this project, but it turned out that way quite by chance. However, it did lead to creating this beautiful safe space; we have a language as women around emotions and interpersonal dynamics that is a shorthand in many ways. You don’t have to justify your existence or explain why we are focusing on this instead of that. So that did lend itself to a very realistic female perspective that is also quite wide-ranging because there is not just one way to be a woman obviously,” she answers.
But there’s no doubt what Wang is most excited about now that Expats is set to release; her dog Chauncey JaMarcus Wang-Jenkins (Wang’s partner is Barry Jenkins, director of the Oscar-winning Moonlight) makes a cameo appearance in the series. “Yes! We are very excited about Chauncey’s big debut! And we certainly hope it leads to more work for him,” she signs off, laughing.
Expats will premiere on Prime Video with two episodes on January 26, with new episodes launching weekly
