1
00:00:00,925 --> 00:00:05,877
The Silicon Valley and the internet
gave me superpowers,

2
00:00:05,877 --> 00:00:08,975
tools to go to battle with,

3
00:00:08,975 --> 00:00:11,872
a suit to take bullets with

4
00:00:11,872 --> 00:00:16,270
and a giant signal in the sky
that told me when it was time to fight.

5
00:00:17,251 --> 00:00:20,481
Now, I can't actually prove any of this.

6
00:00:20,903 --> 00:00:22,904
I am not "scientist,"

7
00:00:22,904 --> 00:00:24,356
I don't have "facts."

8
00:00:25,199 --> 00:00:28,538
In fact, my Rotten Tomato score
is running around 50 percent right now,

9
00:00:28,538 --> 00:00:30,251
so I'm not sure why they let me in.

10
00:00:30,251 --> 00:00:31,284
(Laughter)

11
00:00:31,649 --> 00:00:35,273
But if we're talking about
colliding with a power

12
00:00:35,273 --> 00:00:36,756
that's bigger than us,

13
00:00:36,756 --> 00:00:38,395
then I'm in the right place,

14
00:00:38,395 --> 00:00:39,809
because this last year,

15
00:00:39,809 --> 00:00:43,519
I had an interesting year with a movie
called "Crazy Rich Asians" that I did --

16
00:00:43,519 --> 00:00:44,523
(Applause and cheers)

17
00:00:44,523 --> 00:00:45,764
Thank you, thank you.

18
00:00:46,532 --> 00:00:49,670
And if we're talking about
connection specifically today,

19
00:00:49,670 --> 00:00:52,175
then I know my story is only possible

20
00:00:52,175 --> 00:00:56,201
because of a collection of connections
that happened throughout my life,

21
00:00:56,201 --> 00:00:58,916
and so hopefully by telling
a little bit of my story,

22
00:00:58,916 --> 00:01:02,241
it will help someone else find their path
a little sooner than I did.

23
00:01:02,712 --> 00:01:08,329
My story begins when I opened
the holy book for the first time ...

24
00:01:08,329 --> 00:01:10,073
the holy book of gadgets, of course,

25
00:01:10,073 --> 00:01:11,094
"Sharper Image."

26
00:01:11,094 --> 00:01:12,091
(Laughter)

27
00:01:12,091 --> 00:01:13,571
Yes, those who know.

28
00:01:13,772 --> 00:01:17,163
It was a magical magazine of dreams

29
00:01:17,163 --> 00:01:20,943
and had things in there
that you knew could not possibly exist,

30
00:01:20,943 --> 00:01:22,048
but it was right there.

31
00:01:22,048 --> 00:01:23,100
You could order it --

32
00:01:23,100 --> 00:01:24,101
come in the mail.

33
00:01:24,101 --> 00:01:26,785
And some things that probably
should have never existed,

34
00:01:26,785 --> 00:01:30,052
like "Gregory," a lifelike,
portable mannequin

35
00:01:30,052 --> 00:01:32,891
who deters crime by his strong,
masculine appearance.

36
00:01:32,891 --> 00:01:33,891
This is a real --

37
00:01:33,891 --> 00:01:34,892
(Laughter)

38
00:01:34,892 --> 00:01:36,480
This is a real thing, by the way.

39
00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:37,480
(Laughter)

40
00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:41,560
But my eyes were set
on the Video Edit Sima 2.

41
00:01:41,766 --> 00:01:44,267
This thing was so cool at the age of 10.

42
00:01:44,497 --> 00:01:47,415
You could connect
all your VHS players together

43
00:01:47,415 --> 00:01:48,707
and cut something together,

44
00:01:48,707 --> 00:01:51,635
so I called my parents
and convinced them to buy this for me.

45
00:01:51,635 --> 00:01:52,945
But before I get into that,

46
00:01:52,945 --> 00:01:55,338
let me give you a little rundown
about my parents.

47
00:01:55,338 --> 00:01:58,123
They came to the United States
when they were young,

48
00:01:58,123 --> 00:01:59,925
they're from Taiwan in China

49
00:01:59,925 --> 00:02:02,908
and they settled
in Los Altos, California --

50
00:02:02,908 --> 00:02:05,198
the Silicon Valley
before the Silicon Valley --

51
00:02:05,198 --> 00:02:08,445
and they started a restaurant
called Chef Chu's.

52
00:02:08,703 --> 00:02:11,438
50 years later, today, they still
work at the restaurant,

53
00:02:11,438 --> 00:02:12,485
they're still there,

54
00:02:12,485 --> 00:02:13,586
and I grew up there,

55
00:02:13,586 --> 00:02:14,592
so it was great.

56
00:02:14,592 --> 00:02:15,771
Talk about connection --

57
00:02:15,771 --> 00:02:17,583
this place was a hub of connection.

58
00:02:17,583 --> 00:02:22,059
People coming there to celebrate
birthdays, anniversaries, business deals,

59
00:02:22,059 --> 00:02:23,279
eating, drinking --

60
00:02:23,279 --> 00:02:24,284
connection.

61
00:02:24,284 --> 00:02:26,284
And I got to grow up in that environment.

62
00:02:26,418 --> 00:02:29,717
And my parents always said America
is the greatest place in the world.

63
00:02:29,717 --> 00:02:30,787
You can --

64
00:02:30,787 --> 00:02:34,943
if you love anything, you can work hard
and you can accomplish anything you want.

65
00:02:35,150 --> 00:02:38,033
So, they raised five all-American kids.

66
00:02:38,706 --> 00:02:39,904
I am the youngest --

67
00:02:39,904 --> 00:02:43,493
you can see I'm the one
with the eyes closed there --

68
00:02:43,493 --> 00:02:46,625
and they named actually my sister and I,
Jennifer and Jonathan,

69
00:02:46,625 --> 00:02:49,895
after Jennifer and Jonathan Hart
from that TV show "Hart to Hart."

70
00:02:49,895 --> 00:02:52,203
(Laughter)

71
00:02:52,203 --> 00:02:54,579
So that's how much
they loved America, apparently.

72
00:02:55,164 --> 00:02:57,590
And they thought
that we were The Kennedys --

73
00:02:57,590 --> 00:02:58,703
my mom specifically --

74
00:02:58,703 --> 00:03:01,354
so she dressed us up
all the time like each other

75
00:03:01,354 --> 00:03:04,864
and she put us in etiquette classes
and ballroom dance classes,

76
00:03:04,864 --> 00:03:08,574
made sure that we had
the right dental plan --

77
00:03:08,574 --> 00:03:10,270
(Laughter)

78
00:03:10,270 --> 00:03:11,675
This is a real picture of me.

79
00:03:11,675 --> 00:03:12,682
That is not fake.

80
00:03:12,682 --> 00:03:13,986
Thank God for that one.

81
00:03:14,716 --> 00:03:18,129
And I was in charge of the video camera
every time we went on vacations,

82
00:03:18,129 --> 00:03:21,306
so I would collect all these videos
and had nothing to do with it.

83
00:03:21,306 --> 00:03:23,852
Thus, the Sima Video Edit 2.

84
00:03:24,213 --> 00:03:25,961
I convinced them to get it for me,

85
00:03:25,961 --> 00:03:28,690
and I spent all night trying to wrangle

86
00:03:28,690 --> 00:03:30,983
all the VCRs from my brother's
and sister's room,

87
00:03:30,983 --> 00:03:31,982
tangled in wires,

88
00:03:31,982 --> 00:03:33,757
and now I had something to show them.

89
00:03:33,757 --> 00:03:36,057
So I brought them
into the living room one night,

90
00:03:36,057 --> 00:03:38,186
it was probably 1991,
somewhere around there,

91
00:03:38,186 --> 00:03:40,074
and I sit them down in the living room,

92
00:03:40,074 --> 00:03:41,585
my heart was pounding,

93
00:03:41,585 --> 00:03:42,974
my breaths were deep --

94
00:03:42,974 --> 00:03:44,473
sort of like right now --

95
00:03:44,473 --> 00:03:45,974
and I pressed play

96
00:03:45,974 --> 00:03:49,264
and something extraordinary
happened actually.

97
00:03:49,749 --> 00:03:50,833
They cried.

98
00:03:51,723 --> 00:03:52,724
And cried.

99
00:03:52,731 --> 00:03:56,281
They cried not because it was
the most amazing home video edit ever --

100
00:03:56,281 --> 00:03:57,757
although it was pretty good --

101
00:03:57,757 --> 00:03:58,944
(Laughter)

102
00:03:58,944 --> 00:04:04,253
but because they saw our family
as a normal family that fit in

103
00:04:04,253 --> 00:04:06,504
and belonged on the screen
in front of them,

104
00:04:06,504 --> 00:04:10,873
just like the movies that they worshipped
and the TV shows that they named us after.

105
00:04:11,525 --> 00:04:13,876
I remember as the youngest
of these five kids

106
00:04:13,876 --> 00:04:15,717
feeling heard for the first time.

107
00:04:15,871 --> 00:04:18,407
There was this place where
all these things in my head

108
00:04:18,407 --> 00:04:20,977
could go into the great,
electric somewhere-out-there

109
00:04:20,977 --> 00:04:22,041
and exist and escape,

110
00:04:22,041 --> 00:04:23,538
and I knew from this moment on,

111
00:04:23,538 --> 00:04:25,609
I wanted to do this
for the rest of my life,

112
00:04:25,609 --> 00:04:27,775
whether I was going
to get paid for it or not.

113
00:04:27,775 --> 00:04:30,132
So I had this passion
and now I needed some tools,

114
00:04:30,132 --> 00:04:31,571
and my dad went to work.

115
00:04:31,571 --> 00:04:35,143
He continued to brag
about my home video editing skills

116
00:04:35,143 --> 00:04:37,101
to the customers at Chef Chu's,

117
00:04:37,101 --> 00:04:39,143
and luckily this is the Silicon Valley,

118
00:04:39,143 --> 00:04:41,240
so they're working on stuff,

119
00:04:41,240 --> 00:04:42,388
hardware and software --

120
00:04:42,388 --> 00:04:43,718
these are all engineers --

121
00:04:43,718 --> 00:04:47,505
and they offered to give me things
for digital video editing.

122
00:04:47,505 --> 00:04:50,140
This is like the mid-'90s, early '90's,

123
00:04:50,140 --> 00:04:52,723
where this stuff didn't exist
for kids like me.

124
00:04:52,981 --> 00:04:57,254
So I'd get these beta software
and hardware from places like HP and Sun

125
00:04:57,254 --> 00:04:59,991
and Russel Brown at Adobe.

126
00:05:00,375 --> 00:05:02,071
And I had no manual,

127
00:05:02,071 --> 00:05:04,803
so I'd figure it out and I fell in love
with it even more.

128
00:05:04,866 --> 00:05:08,970
I went to USC School of Cinematic Arts
and started to go there,

129
00:05:08,970 --> 00:05:12,581
and my mom and dad would always
call me randomly and remind me

130
00:05:12,581 --> 00:05:16,485
that I've got to do movies about
my Chinese heritage.

131
00:05:16,895 --> 00:05:20,340
That China was going to be a huge
market for movies one day --

132
00:05:20,340 --> 00:05:21,912
I was like, "Yeah right, guys" --

133
00:05:21,912 --> 00:05:23,426
(Laughter)

134
00:05:23,426 --> 00:05:24,898
Always listen to your parents.

135
00:05:24,898 --> 00:05:28,093
(Laughter)

136
00:05:28,093 --> 00:05:31,000
I wanted to be Zemeckis,
Lucas and Spielberg.

137
00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:34,190
The last thing I wanted to talk about
was my own cultural identity,

138
00:05:34,190 --> 00:05:35,455
my ethnicity.

139
00:05:35,797 --> 00:05:37,786
And honestly, I had
no one else to talk --

140
00:05:37,786 --> 00:05:40,528
there was no one at school
that I could really open up to,

141
00:05:40,528 --> 00:05:42,539
and even if I did, like,
what would I say?

142
00:05:42,539 --> 00:05:44,765
So I ignored it
and I moved on with my life.

143
00:05:45,014 --> 00:05:47,080
Cut to 15 years later,

144
00:05:47,080 --> 00:05:48,227
I made it in Hollywood.

145
00:05:48,227 --> 00:05:50,042
I got discovered by Spielberg,

146
00:05:50,042 --> 00:05:53,568
I worked with The Rock
and Bruce Willis and Justin Bieber.

147
00:05:53,568 --> 00:05:58,037
I even came to the TED stage
to present my dance company LXD,

148
00:05:58,037 --> 00:05:59,399
and it was great.

149
00:05:59,743 --> 00:06:01,168
And then a couple years ago,

150
00:06:01,168 --> 00:06:03,436
I felt a little bit lost, creatively.

151
00:06:04,008 --> 00:06:05,889
The engine was going down a little bit,

152
00:06:05,889 --> 00:06:08,710
and I got a sign ...

153
00:06:08,710 --> 00:06:11,607
I heard from voices from the sky ...

154
00:06:11,607 --> 00:06:13,189
or more it was like, birds.

155
00:06:13,413 --> 00:06:14,612
OK, fine, it was Twitter.

156
00:06:14,612 --> 00:06:15,711
And Twitter --

157
00:06:15,711 --> 00:06:17,563
(Laughter)

158
00:06:17,563 --> 00:06:19,135
It was Constance Wu on Twitter,

159
00:06:19,135 --> 00:06:20,884
it was Daniel Dae Kim,

160
00:06:20,884 --> 00:06:23,276
it was Jenny Yang, who's here today,

161
00:06:23,276 --> 00:06:24,383
it was Alan Yang --

162
00:06:24,383 --> 00:06:27,764
all of these people who were writing
their frustrations

163
00:06:27,764 --> 00:06:30,071
with representation in Hollywood.

164
00:06:30,433 --> 00:06:31,750
And it really hit me.

165
00:06:32,043 --> 00:06:34,545
I thought these things
but never really registered --

166
00:06:34,545 --> 00:06:35,921
I was really focused on --

167
00:06:35,921 --> 00:06:37,618
and I felt lucky to be working,

168
00:06:37,618 --> 00:06:38,932
and so then I realized --

169
00:06:38,932 --> 00:06:40,620
yeah, what is wrong with Hollywood?

170
00:06:40,620 --> 00:06:41,953
Why aren't they doing this?

171
00:06:41,953 --> 00:06:45,895
And then I looked at myself in the mirror
and realized I am Hollywood.

172
00:06:45,895 --> 00:06:46,899
I literally --

173
00:06:46,899 --> 00:06:48,930
I popped my collar before I came out here,

174
00:06:48,930 --> 00:06:50,494
that's how Hollywood I am.

175
00:06:50,494 --> 00:06:51,486
(Laughter)

176
00:06:51,486 --> 00:06:52,494
Is it still up?

177
00:06:52,494 --> 00:06:53,493
OK, good.

178
00:06:53,493 --> 00:06:54,983
(Applause)

179
00:06:56,932 --> 00:06:59,382
For all these years I felt
I had been given so much,

180
00:06:59,382 --> 00:07:02,966
and what was I giving back
to the film business that I loved?

181
00:07:03,557 --> 00:07:04,715
I felt lucky to be here,

182
00:07:04,715 --> 00:07:07,924
but at this moment, I realized
that I was not just lucky to be here,

183
00:07:07,924 --> 00:07:09,787
I had the right to be here.

184
00:07:09,787 --> 00:07:11,461
No, I earned the right to be here.

185
00:07:11,461 --> 00:07:12,807
All those sleepless nights,

186
00:07:12,807 --> 00:07:14,711
all those parties I missed on Fridays,

187
00:07:14,711 --> 00:07:18,370
every friend and girlfriend I lost
because I was editing --

188
00:07:18,370 --> 00:07:22,103
I earned the right to be here not just
to have a voice but to say something,

189
00:07:22,103 --> 00:07:23,491
and say something important,

190
00:07:23,491 --> 00:07:25,493
and I had, actually, the power --

191
00:07:25,493 --> 00:07:29,523
the superpower to change things
if I really, really wanted to.

192
00:07:31,871 --> 00:07:33,892
When you try to tell
stories about yourself

193
00:07:33,892 --> 00:07:36,561
and people who look like you
and look like your familiy,

194
00:07:36,561 --> 00:07:37,561
it can be scary,

195
00:07:37,561 --> 00:07:39,875
and all those feelings
of being alone came back.

196
00:07:39,875 --> 00:07:41,559
But the internet is what told me --

197
00:07:41,559 --> 00:07:44,821
sent the sign that there was going
to be a whole army waiting for me

198
00:07:44,821 --> 00:07:46,760
to support me and to love me for it.

199
00:07:47,115 --> 00:07:51,386
And so I found Kevin Kwan's amazing
novel, "Crazy Rich Asians"

200
00:07:51,386 --> 00:07:52,402
and we went to work.

201
00:07:52,402 --> 00:07:54,274
We put this movie together.

202
00:07:54,792 --> 00:07:55,918
All-Asian cast --

203
00:07:55,918 --> 00:07:59,012
the first all-Asian cast in 25 years
with a contemporary story --

204
00:07:59,012 --> 00:08:02,427
(Applause and cheers)

205
00:08:02,427 --> 00:08:06,700
But when we started
it was not a guarantee at all.

206
00:08:07,290 --> 00:08:09,299
There was no comp for this kind of movie.

207
00:08:10,175 --> 00:08:11,909
Every time we did surveys and stuff,

208
00:08:11,909 --> 00:08:13,820
the audiences weren't going to show up.

209
00:08:13,820 --> 00:08:17,345
In fact, even in our test screenings
where you give free tickets to people

210
00:08:17,345 --> 00:08:19,088
to watch your movie,

211
00:08:19,088 --> 00:08:21,068
we had a one to 25 ratio,

212
00:08:21,068 --> 00:08:23,396
meaning after 25 asked,
only one person said yes,

213
00:08:23,396 --> 00:08:25,524
which is super low
for these types of things.

214
00:08:25,622 --> 00:08:28,565
Asian people who knew the book
didn't trust Hollywood at all,

215
00:08:28,565 --> 00:08:32,273
Asian people who didn't know the book
thought the title was offensive,

216
00:08:32,273 --> 00:08:36,402
and other people who weren't Asian
just didn't think it was for them.

217
00:08:36,402 --> 00:08:38,431
So we were pretty screwed.

218
00:08:39,128 --> 00:08:41,607
Luckily, Warner Brothers
didn't turn away from us.

219
00:08:41,607 --> 00:08:44,110
But then the electric
somewhere struck again,

220
00:08:44,110 --> 00:08:49,972
and this army of Asian-American
writers, reporters, bloggers

221
00:08:49,972 --> 00:08:55,005
who over the years had worked their way up
through their respective publications,

222
00:08:55,005 --> 00:08:56,951
went to work, unbeknownst to me.

223
00:08:56,951 --> 00:08:58,495
And they started to post things.

224
00:08:58,633 --> 00:09:02,366
Also, some tech founders out here
started to post stuff on social media,

225
00:09:02,366 --> 00:09:05,904
write stuff about us in articles
in the "LA Times,"

226
00:09:05,904 --> 00:09:08,663
in "The Hollywood Reporter"
and "Entertainment Weekly."

227
00:09:08,663 --> 00:09:14,202
It was like this grassroots uprising
of making ourselves news.

228
00:09:14,659 --> 00:09:16,583
One amazing thing to witness.

229
00:09:17,527 --> 00:09:23,256
And the swell of support
turned into this conversation online

230
00:09:23,256 --> 00:09:27,346
between all these Asian Americans
where we could actually debate and discuss

231
00:09:27,346 --> 00:09:28,943
what stories we wanted to tell,

232
00:09:28,943 --> 00:09:30,653
what stories should be told or not,

233
00:09:30,653 --> 00:09:31,649
what kind of --

234
00:09:31,649 --> 00:09:33,610
are we allowed to make fun of ourselves?

235
00:09:33,610 --> 00:09:34,864
What about casting?

236
00:09:34,864 --> 00:09:36,234
What are we allowed to do?

237
00:09:36,234 --> 00:09:37,554
And we didn't agree --

238
00:09:37,554 --> 00:09:38,944
and we still don't,

239
00:09:38,944 --> 00:09:40,661
but that wasn't the point.

240
00:09:40,661 --> 00:09:42,985
The point was the conversation
was happening.

241
00:09:43,389 --> 00:09:47,219
And this conversation stream
became an infrastructure.

242
00:09:47,219 --> 00:09:50,854
It took all these different groups
that were trying to achieve the same thing

243
00:09:50,854 --> 00:09:54,262
and put us all together
in this connective tissue.

244
00:09:54,908 --> 00:09:56,248
And again, not perfect,

245
00:09:56,248 --> 00:10:00,391
but the start of how we determine
our own representation on the big screen.

246
00:10:01,852 --> 00:10:04,581
It became more physical
when I went to the movie theater.

247
00:10:05,054 --> 00:10:07,712
I'll never forget going opening weekend,

248
00:10:07,712 --> 00:10:09,081
and I went into the theater,

249
00:10:09,081 --> 00:10:10,368
and it's not just Asians --

250
00:10:10,368 --> 00:10:11,544
all types of people --

251
00:10:11,544 --> 00:10:12,751
and I go in and sit down,

252
00:10:12,751 --> 00:10:14,495
and people laughed,

253
00:10:14,495 --> 00:10:16,353
people cried,

254
00:10:16,353 --> 00:10:19,154
and when I went into the lobby,

255
00:10:19,154 --> 00:10:20,326
people stayed.

256
00:10:20,809 --> 00:10:22,642
It's like they didn't want to leave.

257
00:10:22,858 --> 00:10:24,609
They just hugged each other,

258
00:10:24,609 --> 00:10:25,707
high-fived each other,

259
00:10:25,707 --> 00:10:26,710
took selfies,

260
00:10:26,710 --> 00:10:27,711
they debated it,

261
00:10:27,711 --> 00:10:28,773
they laughed about it.

262
00:10:28,773 --> 00:10:30,058
All these different things.

263
00:10:30,468 --> 00:10:33,704
I had such an intimate
relationship with this movie,

264
00:10:33,704 --> 00:10:36,350
but I didn't understand
when we were making it

265
00:10:36,350 --> 00:10:39,960
what we were making
until it was happening --

266
00:10:39,960 --> 00:10:45,059
that it was the same thing that my parents
felt when they watched our family videos

267
00:10:45,059 --> 00:10:46,630
in that living room that day.

268
00:10:46,836 --> 00:10:50,240
Seeing us on the screen has a power to it,

269
00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:52,666
and the only way I can
describe it is pride.

270
00:10:53,097 --> 00:10:56,618
I have always understood
this word intellectually --

271
00:10:56,618 --> 00:10:58,754
I've probably talked about this word,

272
00:10:58,754 --> 00:11:00,744
but to actually feel pride --

273
00:11:00,744 --> 00:11:02,731
and those of you who have felt it know --

274
00:11:02,731 --> 00:11:07,087
it's like you just want to like,
touch everybody and grab and run around.

275
00:11:07,087 --> 00:11:08,523
It's like a very --

276
00:11:08,523 --> 00:11:09,560
I can't explain --

277
00:11:09,560 --> 00:11:11,407
it's just a very physical feeling,

278
00:11:11,407 --> 00:11:15,428
all because of a long
pattern of connection.

279
00:11:16,631 --> 00:11:19,161
Film was a gift given to me,

280
00:11:19,161 --> 00:11:21,717
and through the years
I've learned a lot of things.

281
00:11:21,717 --> 00:11:24,809
You can plan, you can write scripts,
you can do your storyboards,

282
00:11:24,809 --> 00:11:26,930
but at a certain point,

283
00:11:26,930 --> 00:11:29,206
your movie will speak back to you,

284
00:11:29,206 --> 00:11:31,437
and it's your job to listen.

285
00:11:31,744 --> 00:11:34,427
It's this living organism
and it sort of presents itself,

286
00:11:34,427 --> 00:11:37,172
so you better catch it before
it slips through your hands,

287
00:11:37,172 --> 00:11:39,723
and that's the most exciting part
about making movies.

288
00:11:39,723 --> 00:11:42,315
When I look at life, it's not
that different actually.

289
00:11:42,315 --> 00:11:46,595
I've been led through these sort of
breadcrumbs of connections

290
00:11:46,595 --> 00:11:47,774
through people,

291
00:11:47,774 --> 00:11:48,963
through circumstances,

292
00:11:48,963 --> 00:11:50,254
through luck.

293
00:11:50,578 --> 00:11:55,164
And it changed when I realized
that once you start listening

294
00:11:55,164 --> 00:11:57,690
to the silent beats and the messy
noises around you,

295
00:11:57,690 --> 00:12:01,479
you realize that there's this beautiful
symphony already written for you.

296
00:12:01,898 --> 00:12:04,168
A direct line to your destiny.

297
00:12:04,791 --> 00:12:06,022
Your superpower.

298
00:12:06,474 --> 00:12:10,645
Now, film was a gift given to me,

299
00:12:10,645 --> 00:12:15,333
sort of spurned on by my parents
and supported by my community.

300
00:12:15,683 --> 00:12:18,732
I got to be who I wanted to be
when I needed to be it.

301
00:12:19,636 --> 00:12:21,982
My mom posted something
on Facebook the other day,

302
00:12:21,982 --> 00:12:26,077
which is usually really bad
things to say out loud --

303
00:12:26,077 --> 00:12:28,234
scary, she should not
have a Facebook, but --

304
00:12:28,234 --> 00:12:29,857
(Laughter)

305
00:12:29,857 --> 00:12:30,954
she posted this thing,

306
00:12:30,954 --> 00:12:31,947
and it was a meme,

307
00:12:31,947 --> 00:12:33,676
you know, one of those funny things,

308
00:12:33,676 --> 00:12:36,776
and it said, "You can't change
someone who doesn't want to change,

309
00:12:36,776 --> 00:12:39,309
but never underestimate
the power of planting a seed."

310
00:12:39,309 --> 00:12:41,910
And as I was doing the finishing
touches on this talk,

311
00:12:41,910 --> 00:12:44,729
I realized that all the powerful
connections in my life

312
00:12:44,729 --> 00:12:50,859
were through generosity and kindness
and love and hope.

313
00:12:51,035 --> 00:12:54,429
So when I think about my movies
"Crazy Rich Asians" and "In the Heights"

314
00:12:54,429 --> 00:12:56,139
which I'm working on right now --

315
00:12:56,139 --> 00:12:57,442
(Applause and cheers)

316
00:12:57,442 --> 00:12:58,776
Yes, it's a good one.

317
00:12:59,590 --> 00:13:04,238
All I want to do is show joy
and hope in them,

318
00:13:04,238 --> 00:13:07,635
because I refuse to believe
that our best days are behind us,

319
00:13:07,635 --> 00:13:09,655
but in fact, around the corner.

320
00:13:10,077 --> 00:13:11,383
Because you see love --

321
00:13:11,383 --> 00:13:14,099
love is the superpower
that was given to me.

322
00:13:14,324 --> 00:13:18,366
Love is the superpower
that was passed onto me.

323
00:13:19,079 --> 00:13:23,308
Love is the only thing
that can stop a speeding bullet

324
00:13:23,308 --> 00:13:24,880
before it even exits the chamber.

325
00:13:24,880 --> 00:13:27,373
Love is the only thing that can
leap over a building

326
00:13:27,373 --> 00:13:31,069
and have a whole community
look up into the sky,

327
00:13:31,069 --> 00:13:32,436
join hands,

328
00:13:32,436 --> 00:13:36,268
and have the courage to face something
that's impossibly bigger than themselves.

329
00:13:37,027 --> 00:13:39,642
So I have a challenge for myself
and for anyone here.

330
00:13:39,773 --> 00:13:42,459
As you're working on your thing,

331
00:13:42,459 --> 00:13:43,559
on your company,

332
00:13:43,559 --> 00:13:45,454
and you're forging this thing to life,

333
00:13:45,454 --> 00:13:48,011
and you're making the impossible possible,

334
00:13:48,011 --> 00:13:51,925
let's just not forget
to be kind to each other,

335
00:13:51,925 --> 00:13:55,179
because I believe that is the most
powerful form of connection

336
00:13:55,179 --> 00:13:56,682
we can give to this planet.

337
00:13:56,682 --> 00:13:59,741
In fact, our future depends on it.

338
00:14:00,069 --> 00:14:01,462
Thank you.

339
00:14:01,462 --> 00:14:04,009
(Applause and cheers)

340
00:14:04,009 --> 00:14:05,014
Thank you.

341
00:14:05,014 --> 00:14:07,301
(Applause)