Making a Scene by Constance Wu | Book Review
Simon & Schuster
Making a Scene by Constance Wu.
About the Book: Growing up in the friendly suburbs of Richmond, Virginia, Constance Wu was often scolded for having big feelings or strong reactions. “Good girls don’t make scenes,” people warned her. And while she spent most of her childhood suppressing her bold, emotional nature, she found an early outlet in community theater—it was the one place where big feelings were okay—were good, even. Acting became her refuge, and eventually her vocation. At eighteen she moved to New York, where she’d spend the next ten years of her life auditioning, waiting tables, and struggling to make rent before her two big breaks: the TV sitcom Fresh Off the Boat and the hit film Crazy Rich Asians.
Here Constance shares private memories of childhood, young love and heartbreak, sexual assault and harassment, and how she “made it” in Hollywood. Raw, relatable, and enthralling, Making a Scene is an intimate portrait of the pressures and pleasures of existing in today’s world.
Review
I first saw Constance Wu in a commercial for the sitcom Fresh Off the Boat. It was 2015 and I was sitting in the living room of my childhood home. We were watching something like America’s Funniest Home Videos or something. I tried to tame my curiosity for what the show could be as my first impression of the commercials was “finally, a modern Asian-American family but the name is cringey.” At the time, I never ended up watching the show.
Then Crazy Rich Asians hit theaters. Mind you, I was aware of how historic this movie would be: the first predominately Asian cast in a major contemporary Hollywood film in decades. It broke many records and smashed expectations of what commercial success could look like for a movie where the cast was not predominately white. Considering that I had seen the movie three times in theaters, I wonder if I and other return viewers contributed to its success. How validating was it not only to see people who looked like me experiencing relationships and drama but also the production value of the movie was top notch. I then continued to follow Wu’s career and tried to watch other projects she was in, to support her.
As I picked up her memoir, I didn’t quite know what to expect. Although I was never a theater kid, her experiences as an Asian American in the U.S. were relatable nonetheless. She notes how she navigated being an aspiring actor in her twenties and the desperation to find love and belonging . While the book feels like it could have gone through another round of editing, I thought it was refreshing to hear more about an Asian voice where her childhood didn’t fit the immigrant stereotype. She truly has made a name for herself and made a scene.