Lily Gladstone on Her Rom-Com Turn in ‘The Wedding Banquet': 'I Imagined Myself in Comedy'
After her somber, awards-nominated roles in Killers of the Flower Moon and Under the Bridge, Lily Gladstone has quickly established herself as a top dramatic actress in Hollywood — but she wants you to know she can do comedy, too.
Gladstone makes a rom-com pivot with The Wedding Banquet, starring alongside Bowen Yang, Kelly Marie Tran and Han Gi-chan in a remake of Ang Lee's 1993 original Taiwanese-American film. Gladstone and Tran play a lesbian couple, with Tran's character, Angela, agreeing to marry Han's character, Min — who is dating Yang's Chris — to get him a green card, in exchange for paying for her IVF treatment. Things quickly get complicated when Min's grandmother discovers he's getting married.
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For Gladstone, taking on a comedy 'felt like a return to origin. I'm naturally kind of a goofy person; when I was a kid and thought I had any inclination to do any of this, I imagined myself in comedy,' she told The Hollywood Reporter at the film's L.A. premiere on Monday.
'It was kind of a surprise to people who know me that I ended up being such a subtle dramatic actress, so it really just felt like a chance to stretch my wings and be myself a little bit more,' she continued. 'And anybody who knows me well that has seen this film — my best friends who I gave screener links to early on — they're all like, 'This is the most Lily character of all your characters.''
Gladstone said she 'absolutely' wants to do more comedy, and Yang confirmed, 'She is so deeply funny. She can do it all.' Writer-director Andrew Ahn noted that in casting her, 'I had seen interviews with Lily where I was like, 'Oh, she's a goofball, she's funny.' And I get that she has such an incredible presence that people cast her in these dramas but I was so excited to get to work with her where she could be funny and dorky and cute.'
Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran and Han Gi-Chan arrive at the premiere of #TheWeddingBanquet pic.twitter.com/4MACjH3wnb
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) April 15, 2025
Ahn, who previously helmed Fire Island and Driveways, was given the idea to remake The Wedding Banquet and felt an immediate connection with the material, since the 1993 movie was the first gay film he ever saw. In updating it for 2025, he 'thought about how much has changed for the queer community' when it comes to marriage and having children.
'As a huge fan of the original I went in with the expectation that it would just be an updated retelling,' Yang echoed. 'I was surprised and I was also so blown away by how necessarily modernized it was because marriage is, for now, legal for queer people and you have to sort of work around the plot holes of the original to make sure it works and it's solid and makes narrative sense today.'
The group also weighed in releasing the film in the current political climate, as Ahn admitted 'it's so scary and there's so much anxiety about queer people and people of color and our identities not being recognized or supported. And so my hope is that this film can offer people the opportunity to be vulnerable and open themselves up to art and use that to heal, use that to gain strength so that we can go out there and protect the ones we love.'
Tran added, 'I think it's really, really special to be part of a film that gets to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community at a moment in time when it's being attacked viscerally. It's hard to hold both truths at one time but I'm grateful to be here, hopefully showing the queer community some joy in the middle of this time.'
The Wedding Banquet hits theaters on Friday.
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Time Magazine
an hour ago
- Time Magazine
Partner of the First U.S. Woman in Space Reflects On Their Hidden Relationship
History does not record if Sally Ride rolled her eyes when she got a look at the plans for the first toiletry kit NASA put together for its female astronauts—but she'd have been within her rights to do so. The space agency certainly knew how to pack for men, providing them more or less the basics—deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, razor. The women would get the essentials too, but there would be more: lipstick, blush, eyeliner, and, critically, up to 100 tampons—because who-all knew just how many the average woman would need during the average week in space? That first toiletry kit was planned before June 18, 1983, when Ride went aloft on the shuttle Challenger, becoming the first American woman in space, breaking the gender barrier the Soviets had broken with cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, just over 20 years to the day earlier. The tampon nonsense was not the only indignity NASA's female astronauts in general and Ride in particular had to endure. Her story is chronicled in the evocative new documentary Sally, a 2025 winner of the Sundance Film Festival 's Alfred P. Sloan feature film prize. Among the memorable moments Ride experienced was the pre-flight press conference during which a TIME magazine correspondent raised his hand and asked, 'Dr. Ride, a couple of fast questions, sir…ma'am.' There was, too, the reporter who pointedly asked Ride 'Do you weep?' when confronted with a particularly knotty problem during training. There was the bouquet of flowers Ride was handed after the shuttle landed, intended as a gift to America's first space heroine—a gift Ride politely refused to accept, sparking all manner of criticism in the mainstream press. More important than all of that, though, was the private— exceedingly private—side to Ride, most notably her 27-year relationship with her life partner Tam O'Shaughnessy, a marriage-in-all-but-name that wasn't revealed until Ride died of pancreatic cancer in 2012 at age 61, and O'Shaughnessy told the world in the obituary she wrote to mark her mate's passing. Not long before Ride died, O'Shaughnessey gently broached how—and whether—she should reveal their more-than quarter century secret. 'I asked Sally about that. I said, you know, 'I'm kind of worried. I don't know what I'm going to write, you know, how I'm going to navigate this,'' O'Shaughnessy recalled in a recent conversation with TIME, ahead of the release of the film. 'And she said, 'You decide. Whatever you decide will be the right thing to do.'' The film, written, produced, and directed by Cristina Constantine, premiers on the National Geographic channel on June 16, and becomes available for streaming on Disney+ and Hulu on June 17. As it reveals, Sally and Tam made a lot of right—and tough—choices in the time they had together, and Ride did much the same when it came to the professional trajectory that took her to space. There is no minimizing just how alien the notion of female astronauts was at the start, at least in the U.S. The film includes a clip of Gordon Cooper, one of NASA's original seven astronauts, being interviewed in the early 1960s. 'Is there any room in the space program for a woman?' the reporter asked. 'Well,' Cooper answered without a trace of a smile, 'we could have used a woman and flown her instead of the chimpanzee.' It wasn't until 1976, a decade and a half after Alan Shepard became the first American in space, that NASA opened up its astronaut selection process to women and people of color. More than 8,000 hopefuls applied; in 1978, NASA selected 35 of them to become astronauts, including three Black people, one Asian American, and six women. Ride was among them, as was Judith Resnik, who would lose her life when the shuttle Challenger exploded at the start of its tenth mission in January 1986. There was a great deal of handicapping inside and outside of NASA as to which woman would fly first—much the way there was among the men in the run-up to Shepard's flight in 1961—and Ride and Resnik were considered the leading candidates. Ultimately, as Sally recounts, Ride was chosen because she struck NASA mission planners as slightly less distracted by the celebrity attending being number one, focusing more on the mission and less on the history she would make. 'She loved physics and she loved space exploration,' says O'Shaughnessey, 'and with those things she could be intense, driven.' Ride loved O'Shaughnessey too—though it was a devotion that was a long time in the making. The two met when Ride was 13 and O'Shaughnessey was 12 and they were standing in line to check in to play in a tennis tournament in Southern California, where they both grew up. Ride repeatedly rose restlessly to her tiptoes, and O'Shaughenessy said, ''You're walking on your toes like a ballet dancer,'' she recalls in the film. 'That kind of started our friendship. Sally was kind of quiet, but she would talk for eight minutes straight on different players and how to beat 'em, how to whup 'em.' The two grew quickly close, but went in different directions, with Ride studying physics at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania for three semesters beginning in 1968 and later at UCLA for the summer semester before transferring to Stanford as a junior, and O'Shaughnessey becoming a professional tennis player from 1971 to 1974, ultimately playing in both the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. O'Shaughnessy accepted her sexuality early, openly, and enthusiastically. 'I was on the tennis circuit and there were a few queer women,' she told TIME. 'But it was also just the atmosphere, even the straight women. No one really cared who you slept with…I was going to the gay bars in San Francisco and dancing with my friends.' For Ride, things were different. When she was at Stanford she fell in love with her female roommate and the two were together for four years. But Ride insisted on keeping the relationship largely under wraps and that secrecy was a no-go for her partner. 'She couldn't stand being so closeted and decided to move on with her life,' says O'Shaughnessy. Ride would later choose an opposite sex partner, marrying fellow astronaut Steve Hawley in 1982, a move that was more than just an accommodating pose for a public figure in a country not ready for same-sex marriage, but less than a true union of the heart. 'They were really good friends,' O'Shaughnessy says. 'They had a lot in common. He was an astronomer, Sally was a physicist. They had stuff to talk about. They were both so thrilled to be selected to be astronauts and they both liked sports, so I think they had a solid friendship.' It wasn't enough. The two divorced in 1987, but even before they did, Ride and O'Shaughnessy began drifting together as more than just friends. At the time, O'Shaughnessy was living in Atlanta, after retiring from the tennis circuit; Ride, who was living in Houston, would visit her frequently. 'I never thought we would become romantic,' O'Shaughnessy says, 'but it just turned that way one afternoon in the spring of 1985. When she would come to town, we would typically go for runs and long walks and just spend time together. Back at my place one day, we were just talking. I had an old cocker spaniel named Annie, I leaned over to pet her, and the next thing I knew, Sally's hand was on my lower back. And it felt unusual. I turned to look at her and I could tell she was in love with me.' As O'Shaughnessy recalls in the film, she said, 'Oh boy, we're in trouble.' Ride responded, 'We don't have to be. We don't have to do this.' Then they kissed. Ride would ultimately fly twice in space, going aloft the second time in 1984, once again aboard the shuttle Challenger. After that snake-bit ship came to tragic ruin, exploding 73 seconds into its last flight and claiming the lives of all seven crewmembers, Ride and Neil Armstrong, the commander of Apollo 11 and the first man on the moon, served on the commission that investigated the causes of the accident. Ride left NASA in 1987, accepting a fellowship at Stanford and later became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. In 1989, O'Shaughnessy moved out west to live with her. It would not be until 2013, a year after Ride's death, that California would permanently legalize gay marriage, and it would not be until 2015 that the Supreme Court would do the same nationwide. That was alright with Ride, who, as with her relationship with her college roommate, continued to believe that her love for O'Shaughnessy should remain a quiet and relatively private thing. But all that began to change in 2011. It was early that year that Ride first showed signs of illness—poor appetite and yellowing cheeks. Her doctor diagnosed pancreatic cancer. 'The doctor never said what stage. He never said the worst stage. We thought she was going to get better, and we were trying everything,' O'Shaughnessy recalls. 'She was doing acupuncture, we were meditating, we became vegans. And then one day, we're at the oncologist, and he said, 'It's time for hospice.' And Sally and I were, like, shocked.' Not long before Ride died, the couple grew concerned that O'Shaughnessy would not be allowed to visit her in the hospital, help make critical care decisions, or share property because they were not married—and could not be in California. So they went for the next best thing, registering as certified domestic partners, which afforded them the necessary rights. 'It's the worst phrase,' says O'Shaughnessy. 'We used to call each other certified domestic hens, because it's such a bad term.' Whatever name they went by, they would not get to enjoy their newly legalized status for long. Ride passed on July 23, 2012, just 17 months after she was diagnosed. At first NASA planned no formal memorial or celebration of Ride's life. Then, the next month, Armstrong died and a memorial was held at the Washington National Cathedral, with 1,500 people in attendance. 'I got mad,' O'Shaughnessy says. She called then-Senator Barbara Mikulski (D, Md.) who chaired the Senate Committee on Appropriations and oversaw NASA's budget. Mikulski called then-NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, who at first offered up a relatively intimate affair for 300 people at the National Air and Space Museum. O'Shaughnessy pressed, and ultimately won approval for a far more prepossessing event at the Kennedy Center in 2013. Today, Ride's legacy lives on in Sally Ride Science, a nonprofit founded by Ride and O'Shaughnessy in 2001 to inspire girls to become scientifically literate and to draw girls and women into the STEM fields. It lives on too in astronaut Peggy Whitson, who now holds the U.S. record for most time spent in space, at 675 days over four missions. It lives on in Christina Koch, who will become the first woman to travel to the moon, when she flies aboard Artemis II on its circumlunar journey in 2026. It lives on in NASA's current 46-person astronaut corps, of whom 19 are women. Ride flew high, Ride flew fast, and Ride flew first—doing service to both science and human equity in the process. Sally powerfully tells her tale.
Newsweek
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Jason Day Emulates John Daly with US Open Malbon Look
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Yahoo
an hour ago
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Scarlett Johansson Joins Husband Colin Jost on SNL for Sweet Revenge
Scarlett Johansson recently joined her husband Colin Jost in taking sweet revenge on the comedian's 'Saturday Night Live' co-host, Michael Che. The revenge comes after the latter made Jost share some 'tasteless jokes' about the 'Lucy' actor. During a new episode of SNL, in the 'Weekend Update' segment, both comedians started swapping each other's jokes per tradition. In the middle of the segment, Che welcomed Johansson on the show after apologizing to her for the 'Costco roast beef' joke last December. Scarlett Johansson and her husband, Colin Jost, recently brought in their revenge game while on a new episode of Saturday Night Live Season 50. The couple got their revenge on comedians and the show's co-host, Michael Che, for his December jokes on the 'Black Widow' actor which Jost had to read as a joke swapping tradition in the show. During the recent episode of SNL50 in the 'Weekend Update' segment, Michael Che said, 'Before I tell another joke, I wanna take this opportunity to apologize to someone I hurt.' After that, the comedian introduced Scarlett Johansson to the audience and welcomed her on stage for the rest of the segment. The comedian then continued, 'Last time we did joke swaps, I made Colin do some tasteless jokes, comparing your vagina to Costco roast beef.' The 'Lost in Translation' actor responded with, 'Yes, I remember that.' After that, Michael Che went on to read jokes written by his co-host and Johansson's husband, Colin Jost. It was a sweet revenge on Jost and Johansson's part, Che read, 'I was just lashing out because I'm jealous.' He continued, 'I've never seen a human vagina. Notice I said human, because I once spent a summer on a farm.' However, at the end of the segment, Johansson is seen giving a hug to Che, indicating that she had forgiven the comedian. The post Scarlett Johansson Joins Husband Colin Jost on SNL for Sweet Revenge appeared first on Reality Tea.
