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The Silicon Valley and the internet
gave me superpowers,

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tools to go to battle with,

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a suit to take bullets with

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and a giant signal in the sky
that told me when it was time to fight.

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Now, I can't actually prove any of this.

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I am not a "scientist,"

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I don't have "facts."

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In fact, my Rotten Tomato score
is running around 50 percent right now,

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so I'm not sure why they let me in.

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(Laughter)

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But if we're talking
about colliding with a power

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that's bigger than us,

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then I'm in the right place,

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because this last year,

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I had an interesting year with a movie
called "Crazy Rich Asians" that I did --

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(Applause and cheers)

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Thank you, thank you.

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And if we're talking about
connection specifically today,

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then I know my story is only possible

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because of a collection of connections
that happened throughout my life,

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and so hopefully by telling
a little bit of my story,

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it will help someone else find their path
a little sooner than I did.

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My story begins when I opened
the holy book for the first time ...

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The holy book of gadgets,
of course, "Sharper Image."

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(Laughter)

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Yes, those who know.

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It was a magical magazine of dreams

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and had things in there
that you knew could not possibly exist,

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but it was right there.

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You could order it -- come in the mail.

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And some things that probably
should have never existed,

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like "Gregory," a lifelike,
portable mannequin

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who deters crime by his strong,
masculine appearance.

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This is a real --

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(Laughter)

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This is a real thing, by the way.

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(Laughter)

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But my eyes were set
on the Sima Video Ed/it 2.

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This thing was so cool at the age of 10.

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You could connect
all your VHS players together

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and cut something together,

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so I called my parents
and convinced them to buy this for me.

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But before I get into that,

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let me give you a little rundown
about my parents.

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They came to the United States
when they were young,

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they're from Taiwan in China

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and they settled
in Los Altos, California --

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the Silicon Valley
before the Silicon Valley --

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and they started a restaurant
called Chef Chu's.

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50 years later, today,
they still work at the restaurant,

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they're still there,

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and I grew up there, so it was great.

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Talk about connection --
this place was a hub of connection.

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People coming there to celebrate
birthdays, anniversaries, business deals,

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eating, drinking --

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connection.

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And I got to grow up in that environment.

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And my parents always said America
is the greatest place in the world.

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You can --

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if you love anything, you can work hard
and you can accomplish anything you want.

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So, they raised five all-American kids.

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I am the youngest --

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you can see I'm the one
with the eyes closed there --

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and they named actually my sister and I,
Jennifer and Jonathan,

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after Jennifer and Jonathan Hart
from that TV show "Hart to Hart."

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(Laughter)

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So that's how much
they loved America, apparently.

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And they thought
that we were The Kennedys --

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my mom specifically --

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so she dressed us up
all the time like each other

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and she put us in etiquette classes
and ballroom dance classes,

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made sure that we had
the right dental plan --

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(Laughter)

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This is a real picture of me.
That is not fake.

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Thank God for that one.

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And I was in charge of the video camera
every time we went on vacations,

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so I would collect all these videos
and had nothing to do with it.

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Thus, the Sima Video Ed/it 2.

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I convinced them to get it for me,

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and I spent all night
trying to wrangle all the VCRs

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from my brother's and sister's room,
tangled in wires,

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and now I had something to show them.

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So I brought them
into the living room one night,

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it was probably 1991,
somewhere around there,

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and I sit them down in the living room --

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my heart was pounding,
my breaths were deep --

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sort of like right now --

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and I pressed play

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and something extraordinary
happened actually.

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They cried.

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And cried.

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They cried not because it was
the most amazing home video edit ever --

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although it was pretty good --

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(Laughter)

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but because they saw our family
as a normal family that fit in

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and belonged on the screen
in front of them,

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just like the movies that they worshipped
and the TV shows that they named us after.

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I remember as the youngest
of these five kids

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feeling heard for the first time.

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There was this place
where all these things in my head

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could go into the great, electric
somewhere-out-there and exist and escape,

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and I knew from this moment on,

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I wanted to do this
for the rest of my life,

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whether I was going
to get paid for it or not.

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So I had this passion
and now I needed some tools,

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and my dad went to work.

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He continued to brag
about my home video editing skills

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to the customers at Chef Chu's,

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and luckily this is the Silicon Valley,

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so they're working on stuff,
hardware and software --

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these are all engineers.

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And they offered to give me things
for digital video editing.

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This is like the mid-'90s, early '90's,

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where this stuff didn't exist
for kids like me.

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So I'd get this beta software
and hardware from places like HP and Sun

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and Russell Brown at Adobe.

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And I had no manual,

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so I'd figure it out
and I fell in love with it even more.

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I went to USC School of Cinematic Arts
and started to go there,

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and my mom and dad would always
call me randomly and remind me

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that I've got to do movies
about my Chinese heritage.

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That China was going to be
a huge market for movies one day.

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I was like, "Yeah right, guys".

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(Laughter)

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Always listen to your parents.

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(Laughter)

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I wanted to be Zemeckis,
Lucas and Spielberg.

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The last thing I wanted to talk about
was my own cultural identity,

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my ethnicity.

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And honestly, I had no one else to talk --

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there was no one at school
that I could really open up to,

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and even if I did, like, what would I say?

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So I ignored it
and I moved on with my life.

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Cut to 15 years later,

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I made it in Hollywood.

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I got discovered by Spielberg,

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I worked with The Rock
and Bruce Willis and Justin Bieber.

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I even came to the TED stage
to present my dance company LXD,

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and it was great.

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And then a couple years ago,

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I felt a little bit lost, creatively.

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The engine was going down a little bit,

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and I got a sign ...

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I heard from voices from the sky ...

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or more it was like, birds.

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OK, fine, it was Twitter.

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And Twitter --

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(Laughter)

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It was Constance Wu on Twitter,

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it was Daniel Dae Kim,

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it was Jenny Yang, who's here today,

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it was Alan Yang --

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all of these people
who were writing their frustrations

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with representation in Hollywood.

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And it really hit me.

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I thought these things
but never really registered --

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I was really focused on --

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and I felt lucky to be working,

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and so then I realized --

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yeah, what is wrong with Hollywood?

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Why aren't they doing this?

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And then I looked at myself in the mirror
and realized I am Hollywood.

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I literally --

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I popped my collar before I came out here,

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that's how Hollywood I am.

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(Laughter)

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Is it still up? OK, good.

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(Applause)

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For all these years I felt
I had been given so much,

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and what was I giving back
to the film business that I loved?

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I felt lucky to be here,

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but at this moment, I realized
that I was not just lucky to be here,

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I had the right to be here.

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No, I earned the right to be here.

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All those sleepless nights,
all those parties I missed on Fridays,

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every friend and girlfriend I lost
because I was editing --

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I earned the right to be here not just
to have a voice but to say something,

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and say something important,

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and I had, actually, the power --

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the superpower to change things
if I really, really wanted to.

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When you try to tell
stories about yourself

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and people who look like you
and look like your family,

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it can be scary,

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and all those feelings
of being alone came back.

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But the internet is what told me --

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sent the sign that there was going
to be a whole army waiting for me

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to support me and to love me for it.

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And so I found Kevin Kwan's
amazing novel "Crazy Rich Asians,"

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and we went to work.

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We put this movie together.

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All-Asian cast --

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the first all-Asian cast in 25 years
with a contemporary story --

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(Applause and cheers)

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But when we started
it was not a guarantee at all.

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There was no comp for this kind of movie.

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Every time we did surveys and stuff,

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the audiences weren't going to show up.

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In fact, even in our test screenings

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where you give free tickets to people
to watch your movie,

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we had a one to 25 ratio,

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meaning after 25 asks,
only one person said yes,

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which is super low
for these types of things.

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Asian people who knew the book
didn't trust Hollywood at all,

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Asian people who didn't know the book
thought the title was offensive

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and other people who weren't Asian
just didn't think it was for them.

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So we were pretty screwed.

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Luckily, Warner Brothers
didn't turn away from us.

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But then the electric
somewhere struck again,

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and this army of Asian-American
writers, reporters, bloggers,

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who over the years had worked their way up
through their respective publications,

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went to work, unbeknownst to me.

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And they started to post things.

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Also, some tech founders out here
started to post stuff on social media,

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write stuff about us
in articles in the "LA Times,"

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in "The Hollywood Reporter"
and "Entertainment Weekly."

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It was like this grassroots uprising
of making ourselves news.

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What an amazing thing to witness.

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And the swell of support
turned into this conversation online

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between all these Asian Americans

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where we could actually debate and discuss

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what stories we wanted to tell,

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what stories should be told or not,

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what kind of --

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are we allowed to make fun of ourselves?

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What about casting?
What are we allowed to do?

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And we didn't agree -- and we still don't,

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but that wasn't the point.

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The point was the conversation
was happening.

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And this conversation stream
became an infrastructure.

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It took all these different groups
that were trying to achieve the same thing

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and put us all together
in this connective tissue.

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And again, not perfect,

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but the start of how we determine
our own representation on the big screen.

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It became more physical
when I went to the movie theater.

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I'll never forget going --
opening weekend,

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and I went into the theater,
and it's not just Asians --

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all types of people --

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and I go in and sit down,

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and people laughed, people cried,

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and when I went into the lobby,

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people stayed.

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It's like they didn't want to leave.

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They just hugged each other,

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high-fived each other, took selfies,

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they debated it, they laughed about it.

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All these different things.

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I had such an intimate
relationship with this movie,

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but I didn't understand
when we were making it

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what we were making
until it was happening --

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that it was the same thing that my parents
felt when they watched our family videos

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in that living room that day.

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Seeing us on the screen has a power to it,

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and the only way I can
describe it is pride.

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I have always understood
this word intellectually --

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I've probably talked about this word,

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but to actually feel pride --

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and those of you who have felt it know --

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it's like you just want to like,
touch everybody and grab and run around.

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It's like a very --

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I can't explain --

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it's just a very physical feeling,

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all because of
a long pattern of connection.

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Film was a gift given to me,

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and through the years
I've learned a lot of things.

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You can plan, you can write scripts,
you can do your storyboards,

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but at a certain point,

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your movie will speak back to you,

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and it's your job to listen.

00:11:31.667 --> 00:11:34.393
It's this living organism
and it sort of presents itself,

00:11:34.417 --> 00:11:37.184
so you better catch it
before it slips through your hands,

00:11:37.208 --> 00:11:39.768
and that's the most exciting part
about making movies.

00:11:39.792 --> 00:11:42.351
When I look at life,
it's not that different actually.

00:11:42.375 --> 00:11:46.351
I've been led through these
sort of breadcrumbs of connections

00:11:46.375 --> 00:11:48.809
through people, through circumstances,

00:11:48.833 --> 00:11:50.393
through luck.

00:11:50.417 --> 00:11:54.976
And it changed when I realized
that once you start listening

00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:57.518
to the silent beats
and the messy noises around you,

00:11:57.542 --> 00:12:01.768
you realize that there's this beautiful
symphony already written for you.

00:12:01.792 --> 00:12:04.042
A direct line to your destiny.

00:12:04.667 --> 00:12:06.226
Your superpower.

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Now, film was a gift given to me,

00:12:10.417 --> 00:12:15.434
sort of spurred on by my parents
and supported by my community.

00:12:15.458 --> 00:12:18.833
I got to be who I wanted to be
when I needed to be it.

00:12:19.625 --> 00:12:22.018
My mom posted something
on Facebook the other day,

00:12:22.042 --> 00:12:24.625
which is usually a really bad
thing to say out loud --

00:12:25.958 --> 00:12:28.143
scary, she should not
have a Facebook, but --

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00:12:28.167 --> 00:12:29.518
(Laughter)

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00:12:29.542 --> 00:12:31.518
She posted this thing, and it was a meme,

00:12:31.542 --> 00:12:33.309
you know, one of those funny things,

00:12:33.333 --> 00:12:36.518
and it said, "You can't change
someone who doesn't want to change,

00:12:36.542 --> 00:12:39.143
but never underestimate
the power of planting a seed."

00:12:39.167 --> 00:12:41.768
And as I was doing
the finishing touches on this talk,

00:12:41.792 --> 00:12:44.559
I realized that all the powerful
connections in my life

00:12:44.583 --> 00:12:51.018
were through generosity and kindness
and love and hope.

00:12:51.042 --> 00:12:54.434
So when I think about my movies
"Crazy Rich Asians" and "In the Heights"

00:12:54.458 --> 00:12:56.101
which I'm working on right now --

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00:12:56.125 --> 00:12:57.434
(Applause and cheers)

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00:12:57.458 --> 00:12:59.351
Yes, it's a good one.

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00:12:59.375 --> 00:13:03.809
All I want to do
is show joy and hope in them,

00:13:03.833 --> 00:13:07.476
because I refuse to believe
that our best days are behind us,

00:13:07.500 --> 00:13:09.893
but in fact, around the corner.

00:13:09.917 --> 00:13:11.184
Because you see love --

00:13:11.208 --> 00:13:14.143
love is the superpower
that was given to me.

00:13:14.167 --> 00:13:18.893
Love is the superpower
that was passed onto me.

00:13:18.917 --> 00:13:23.143
Love is the only thing
that can stop a speeding bullet

00:13:23.167 --> 00:13:24.809
before it even exits the chamber.

00:13:24.833 --> 00:13:27.351
Love is the only thing
that can leap over a building

00:13:27.375 --> 00:13:29.958
and have a whole community
look up into the sky,

00:13:30.958 --> 00:13:32.309
join hands,

00:13:32.333 --> 00:13:36.167
and have the courage to face something
that's impossibly bigger than themselves.

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00:13:36.792 --> 00:13:39.726
So I have a challenge for myself
and for anyone here.

00:13:39.750 --> 00:13:42.184
As you're working on your thing,

00:13:42.208 --> 00:13:43.518
on your company,

00:13:43.542 --> 00:13:47.851
and you're forging this thing to life,
and you're making the impossible possible,

00:13:47.875 --> 00:13:50.958
let's just not forget
to be kind to each other,

00:13:51.750 --> 00:13:55.059
because I believe that is
the most powerful form of connection

00:13:55.083 --> 00:13:56.601
we can give to this planet.

00:13:56.625 --> 00:13:59.893
In fact, our future depends on it.

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00:13:59.917 --> 00:14:01.184
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:01.208 --> 00:14:03.518
(Applause and cheers)

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:03.542 --> 00:14:04.976
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:07.292
(Applause)