Worth The Wait Cast On Representing The Love Stories They Never Got To See On Screen

In Tubi’s first Asian American-led original film Worth The Wait, the lives of multiple strangers are intertwined as they navigate love and loss. Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke with actors Lana Condor, Ross Butler, Ali Fumiko Whitney, and Ricky He about their personal connections and bringing to life the love stories they never got to see on screen.

Lana Condor and Ross Butler have both been major players in shaping modern love stories with authentic representation in their careers thanks to leading roles in projects like the To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before franchise, Love In Taipei, and now Worth The Wait. “This is the type of stuff that I wish I could see when I was younger because there was little to no Asian representation, especially in rom-coms,” Butler told me. “Imagine how that feels as a kid growing up feeling like, ‘Oh, you were never the object of desire,’ or actually for Asian women it's too much in that direction where it's dehumanizing. So there was like this huge gap of like, ‘Where are just the normal romances that happen with Asian people in America?’ Now it's like, here we are. This is exactly the stuff that we want.”

Condor chimed in: “[That] was missing, at least in our childhood.”

The ability to tell authentic love stories that anyone can relate to is what really captured these actors’ attention. “What drew me to this project was the fact that it's an all Asian American cast, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that. It's just watching human beings who are in all different places in their lives, falling in love in one way or another,” aid Ali Fumiko Whitney. “As a young kid, I did not really grow up seeing myself reflected. Some of my favorite rom-coms of all time, often it wasn't a leading Asian couple. They tended to be the side characters. What's so cool about this is young kids are going to get to grow up watching the Lana Condor’s, the Ricky He’s, the Ross Butler’s on their screen as the leading man and woman.”

“Growing up, I'm still mad that Jet Li never got to kiss Aaliyah at the end of Romeo Must Die. That really bothers me,” shared Ricky He. “In terms of the conversation of representation, I think that all different types of people of all the colors and beliefs and orientations — in order to be humanized — you have to see them as all types of different characters. Worth the Wait is exactly that. Everyone is coming from very different walks of [life] and different stages of their life. That's the main thing I want to see. I want to see people that look like me going through all of it.”

In Worth The Wait, we get to see this cast come together in very meaningful ways. “What's really cool about this film is it's an ensemble piece, but really you're following a bunch of different storylines,” explained Whitney, calling out Love Actually as a similar movie in the way the characters all connect. “The days where those storylines are interconnected is really cool and I'm excited for audiences to see how everyone relates to one another and how the different couples come together.”

Whitney called it “very fun” to work opposite He. “[Ricky] kept me on my toes,” she shared. “There's definitely some improv I think that makes it into the film.”

Meanwhile Condor and Butler are old friends who worked on To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You and To All The Boys: Always and Forever together. “It evolved so much,” laughed Condor about their friendship. “Our relationship during To All The Boys, we were very goofy. Truthfully, it was really hard to have a conversation with him because I just didn't understand his jokes. It was a great relationship, but it was a hard one to speak to you.”

They initially thought they only had a “surface-level comedy relationship” until the opportunity to work on Worth The Wait came up. “During Worth the Wait, we were so lucky because the material was more mature. We were older in that film. We were our correct age in this film and in To All The Boys we were playing much younger,” Condor explained. “Towards the end of the film, we were having the most deep conversations that I genuinely […] didn't think we had it in us! It honestly was so great ‘cause, jokes aside, it was the biggest joy for me to be able to work with him.”

One of their favorite scenes to shoot together was a bedroom scene on FaceTime that Butler said gave him “chills.” “You're so close because your phone is right here, but he's not there. I really loved the way that Tom [Lin], our amazing director, was able to bring you in and have that moment,” shared Condor. “It was just so heartbreaking to me. You see two people dying to hold each other and one person really needing to be comforted. [You’re] dying to give that comfort to her, but you can't. That was [a] really emotional scene and captured the pain of long distance quite well.”

Get ready to feel all the feels when Worth The Wait hits Tubi on May 23.