Eddie Huang likes to keep things fresh.
39-year-old, whose best-selling memoir “fresh off the boat” Adapted into a network sitcom that he narrated, has also served as a corporate lawyer, a chef and restaurateur, a clothes designer, and a TV host.
With his new film “Boogie” in theaters on March 5, Huang is adding the director to that list – and it may be his favorite gig yet.
“You get to play with people,” said Huang, who grew up in Orlando and now divides his time between New York, Los Angeles and Taiwan. “People will complain about the actors, but I love the actors. They are crazy. I’m a freak. “
The film’s title character (Taylor Takahashi) is a Chinese-American high school basketball star who lives in Flushing and has NBA ambitions. Boogie’s overbearing mother (Pamelin Che) and the loving-but-troubled hustler father (Perry Yung) each have their own ideas of what their son should do with his talent.
Huang, who wrote the film, said that the dynamic between Boogie’s parents is similar to that of his own mother and father.
“My dad’s plan was to make me tough … He physically beat me to be tough,” he told the Post. In contrast, his mother wanted him to be a model student and play musical instruments. “It was like I was to become two different people.”
The casting of the film proved to be challenging. For Boogie, “I couldn’t find an Asian-American actor who [also] Black culture, Latino culture, interacted with hip-hop culture, ”Huang said.
Then, in 2018, while he was completing the script, Huang was playing basketball with his recreational league, when his partner showed up with a friend. He was a 24-year-old Japanese-American who had recently moved from Northern California and was working as a personal trainer and Yakitor chef.
“He’s one of the best Asian basketball players I’ve ever seen,” said Takahashi’s Huang. The two bonded, and Huang eventually hired her as an assistant.
But Huang continued to portray him as her star.
“It became very clear, [Takahashi is] Is going to be boogie, ”said Huang, though his friend had no plans to become an actor. “Rafael, our producer was like, ‘I see it too.”
When it came time to fill the monk’s role, Boogie’s opponent stepped out of the court, looking beyond the usual headshots. After learning about his background of playing basketball, at the last moment he put a pop smoke.
“That’s one of my favorite things about the film,” Huang said Late Canacy Rapper, Who was assassinated in February 2020. He brings a memorable gritty mystery to Monk, and he has three songs in the soundtrack. “I am so blessed just for the time I was with Pop, I will never forget the days.”
Huang also stars in the film as Boogie’s wacky uncle Jackie, whose ongoing gastrointestinal issue provides moments of levitate.
Huang said of her inspiration, “Seeing Joe Pesky as a child, I always wanted to be an Asian ‘my cousin Winnie’.”
Acted and directed for a few accidents. During the second shooting of a scene in which Jackie is driving, Huang crashes into a Korean spa shuttle van.
“I said, ‘It came out of nowhere,” Huang said. “Our DP said, ‘It was parked, brother.”
The majority of the film was shot in Flushing – “it’s absolutely a character,” Huang said – but a lot of the action also takes place in the city of Manhattan. There, Boogie and his buds play street ball and roam some of Huang’s favorite places: Kangay Village, Procell Vintage and their own Baohosh Sandwich Shop.
“I really want it to be seen as a downtown New York film,” Huang said. “That’s America with whom I want people to join.”
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