Charlyne Yi Talks Paper Heart

8 February 2010

Charlyne Yi

For most people love is something that just exists, no questions asked. But for 24-year old actress, comedienne and writer Charlyne Yi, it was a subject of mystery.

Here she talks to Georgina Farrer about how her latest film, Paper Heart, uncovered that mystery and why sneaking into college lectures inspired her to move to LA.

With regards to Paper Heart, you were obviously inspired by your attitude towards love, but your attitude change at all once you started filming?

Going into the film I had an idea of love but although I was playing myself, I did play more of a character than how I really felt. I don’t think I was as sceptical in real life but I was more sort of like - ‘how do you know it’s love, how can you truly be sure, even if you’re with them for 50 years? Or if you break up with someone can you be sure what you experience was true love at all if it didn’t last?

Do you think you learnt a lot from the filming?

Yeah definitely. I think talking to all the different people that I did. Beforehand I actually didn’t think I was going to learn anything!

But I think a big part of life is learning through your own experiences, before other people’s, which is what the character did. But I definitely did learn a lot from the film.

My friend said sometimes we re-write history. For example if you were with someone for 50 years and it didn’t work out and you were like hurt or bitter, it still could be love I suppose but it just didn’t work out. You shouldn’t disregard the moments you thought of it as love

I think my insecurities about love surround the fact that ‘how do you know that it’s going to last?’ But then I realised that you’re not sure whether anything in life’s going to last, even with friendships with your friends, whether your job is going to last, but I think now that you just have to accept that and just enjoy what you have, rather than panicking and worrying about what’s real and how longs it’s going to last.

Is that your ethos - live for the day?

Well sort of but I can be a little bit neurotic and plan a lot. I do always make sure I have a schedule and make sure everything’s done on time, things that are important to survive - like bills etc - but I try not to be over neurotic on social events and future plans.

What was the response like from the people majority of people you approached to interview in the film?

I was actually really surprised at how open everyone was. Everyone was so happy and proud of their love stories. People wanted to talk about it. But as an interviewer I was so nervous!

So much more nervous than what they were on camera and they were so much more natural. Everyone was so calm to interview, they really took the reins of the interview, it was great.

How did you find playing yourself?

It was very strange. I’d never really acted much except for on stage and that’s much different. I am a person who has loud gestures and that is how I am but in the film Nick (Jasenovic) actually asked me to tone down my gestures in order to seem more realistic and that was strange - to play a lower key version of myself.

So where did you get the idea to mix a documentary with fiction?
It originally was just going to be a documentary. I had the idea when I was 19 and I was performing in comedy clubs at the time and I was hanging out with 40-year-old men who were single.

I remember going home one night and turning on the television to see this reality show with people my age dating and there was one guy in a jacuzzi with two women and I remember feeling disgusted and thinking is that how people hook up?! If it is I thought I am so out of the loop.

I went straight from high school to performing and getting two jobs and I was in total shock. I was performing in a bar one night in front of some strangers and someone opened up to me about their love story and it was really interesting.

I told my other comedian friend about it and we talked about how good story telling was so the idea to do something with love and real life came about. There are so many fictional stories about love we thought this was a bit different.

That was the inspiration behind it and I told my friend Nick, who had directed a few films, and he said to me, ‘it’s too bad you don’t want to be on camera,’ and I was like I really don’t.

He then said to me it would be good because I have a really interesting perspective on love. He told me that ideally what would happen is if you fell in love on camera. I said to him NO! It’s not going to happen.

But he said it would work - a combo of both the documentary and a fictional film and that did intrigue me because I do like an element of reality in my stage performances.

Was the fiction part pre-scripted or was it more improvisation?

There was about five pages of an outline and there was a lot of alternative scenes. Some of them worked out well, but some of them didn’t so we did have to think on the spot.

I think we had over 300 hours of footage, including the documentary portions and it really was like building your own story so we could choose different elements for where the story was going to turn, so it was very much improvised. It was actually a little bit terrifying improvising that much.

Do you think you achieved your original aim that you set out to do before making the film?

I think we surprised ourselves in a lot of ways and there were many parts that we thought looked really great, but then there were some bits that we wished we had more footage of. I don’t think it would ever be like a perfect movie. We could have had better takes on things and better options on certain things but it was a hectic process.

But I mean I am really satisfied with what we have, especially the documentary footage but there was lots of my acting parts where I was like ‘ewww’ terrible take. I wish I knew how to act!

Did you find it a fun film to make - especially meeting all the different people?

Oh yeah it was extraordinary. It was one of them rare things where you get to work with your friends and go on this great adventure across America. We got to go into people’s houses, hang out with bikers and ride with them. It was amazing and so much fun.

Aside from the film, you have lots of different hobbies. You have a number of bands also?

Yeah but they’re all a little rusty and I’m not very good at my instruments but I’ve loved music ever since I was a kid.

I remember the first time I tried to write a song - my parent had just bought me a keyboard - it was the 90s, Madonna’s ‘Like a prayer’ was really big and MC Hammer and I tried to write a song. I wrote some lyrics, I think I was about five, and I left the lyrics in my room then went downstairs to get a snack and my parents found my lyrics and started making fun of me and I cried.

I didn’t touch an instrument again until I was in high school. They make fun of me to this day about the lyrics. I think the lyrics were something like ‘oh god, oh god I think I’m in love.’ I told them I was going to make a huge hit out of it.

Music was obviously one of your first passions but what do prefer doing out of all your different hobbies?

I always change, because sometimes I fancy a bit of acting then I just want to work behind the scenes and then when I’m bored with that I’ll jump into music. I’ve realised there’s lots of things to get involved in so I do and keep doing it and you don’t need to have just one career.

I don’t think success is defined by how much attention you get I think it’s about your own happiness - that’s how I define my success.

You obviously enjoy the writing part of music and film - is that something that you would like to carry on doing?

Yeah, I’ve been doing it for the last couple of months. I’m working on few scripts for some friends - I’m not acting in them so it’s great. It’s got not having to write to my own limited acting range. It’s really exciting to think of someone else and trying to find the best writing for other people.

What about your role as a comedienne, is making people laugh something you enjoy doing?

Yeah it’s fun. It all started at college when I was involved with acting and I was being completely sincere but people started laughing and then I realised why they were laughing - because I was so terrible!

I then tried to use this to my advantage and exaggerate how terrible I was by being clumsy in a sincere scene and I think I realised that there is so many variations of how to make people laugh or confused.

People start laughing because they’re uncomfortable and they don’t know what’s real and what’s not and I remember my acting teacher saying to me, ‘Charlyne this is a really dramatic scene - why do you think you’re laughing?’

Then we talked after class and he said to me there’s a very fine line between drama and comedy. And you’re just gearing towards comedy.

What do you think you’ve learnt over the last few years through your acting and song writing etc?

I think I’ve learnt a lot. I have learnt that a lot of the stuff I do is too weird and a lot of people think that the conventional is the set way of doing things if you want to make money.

I’m sure we would have made a lot more money if we’d made a more conventional film but it wouldn’t have made me as happy and I think that something I’ve also learnt is ‘stick to your guns’ if you want something you can make it happen. A lot of people doubted this movie but we got the money we needed. You should always embrace the things you want to do, and have fun.

What sort of advice would you give people who are wanting to get into the same things that you do?

I’m not really too sure how people become actors and writers. I think luckily I just sort of fell into it by performing and a manager found me and asked me if I wanted to write/act/ So I’m not necessarily sure how to give advice on how to get into the business.

What about advice for life?

I guess something I learnt was not to give up. At one point I was performing to an audience of three people and then they walked out on me because I was a girl. It had taken me two hours to get to the venue. I started crying and said to myself ‘what am I doing with my life?’

Also as I didn’t have enough money to go to college so I used to sneak in to various classes and the professor said something really smart one day, usually he just talks about movies, but instead he came out with, ‘no one cares whether you ever perform again, you have to care.’

And I realised that he was right. You can’t rely on other people to be your cheerleader and make you care about something you feel passionate about.

You have to push yourself and find the drive within yourself to know you’ve got what it takes and the only person you will be hurting if you don’t do it is yourself. That is probably something that made me realise that I had to try and go the whole way, which was why I moved to Los Angeles.

Paper Heart - on DVD 8th February - Anchor Bay Films'.