feature image photo by David Livingston / Contributor via Getty Images
Kelly Marie Tran — who plays Rose Tico in the Star Wars movies — came out as queer in an interview with Vanity Fair about her upcoming role in the 2025 remake of Ang Lee’s queer romcom The Wedding Banquet, which will be directed by Fire Island director Andrew Ahn. “I haven’t said this publicly yet, but I’m a queer person,” Tran tells Vanity Fair. “The thing that really excited me about it was I got to play a person that I felt like I knew. I don’t feel like I’m acting at all in this movie…. I’m here doing this amazing movie with these amazing people. I’ve never been in a queer space before. I’ve never truly felt this accepted before.”
So sweet!!!!!
And there’s no better time to come out than a few months before your film in which Lily Gladstone plays your love interest hits theaters!
The original 1993 version of the film was set in New York and about a bisexual Taiwanese immigrant with a boyfriend who marries a woman to placate his parents and also help her get a green card. Romcom shenanigans ensue, naturally, when his parents throw him a wedding banquet. The remake expands the story. Set in Seattle, it’s about sapphic couple Angela (Tran) and Lee (Gladstone), who are trying to have a baby. Their best friends and fellow gay couple Chris (Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-chan) live in this guesthouse. Angela decides to fake-marry Min so he can get a green card and remain in the States and she can raise money for another round of IVF with Lee. It’s set to be a film about queer family-making, friendship, and complex relationships. It sounds very fucking good, and it’s thrilling that so many queer actors will be part of the ensemble cast. With lavender marriage back in the mix among young people, it seems like a perfect time for the remake, set to debut in the spring.
Director Ahn tells Vanity Fair: “I was really focused on trying to tell a story that felt reflective of the community as I’ve experienced it growing up.” Tran then added to this: “The spirit is the same, and I think it’s even more queer.”
Even! More! Queer! Exactly how remakes should work.
It’s clear throughout Vanity Fair‘s first look at the film that it was an intensely personal project for everyone involved, including Tran. “I came out to my mom in a very specific experience,” Tran says. “The scenes that I have with Joan Chen in this movie are very similar to the experience that I had.” Chen plays Angela’s mother in the movie. She is accepting of her daughter’s sexuality and a member of PFLAG, so while there’s tension in the mother-daughter dynamic for the character, that tension isn’t rooted in queerphobia at all.
I literally cannot wait to see this film. And welcome to the family, Kelly Marie Tran!
