In celebration of the Blu-ray release of Raya and the Last Dragon, Kelly Marie Tran appeared on Collider Ladies Night to discuss her experience playing Raya and reflected on the backlash after Star Wars.
During the Star Wars portion of our Ladies Night chat, I [Perri Nemiroff] opted to ask Tran about her expectations for the character going forward right after she finished filming The Last Jedi and how they compared to what we wound up getting in Rise.
While she didn’t get into story specifics, Tran did offer up an important lesson learned about forgoing expectations in favor of being in the moment. Here’s how she put it:
“It’s hard. I think as an actor you don’t really have control over what is happening in a narrative, if that makes sense. And I think as an actor and as an individual, I always try to take my expectations out of the situation because I also want to, as much as possible, try and be present in the experience. I am really, really proud of the way that I’ve been able to show up for myself during this whole journey because, again, if we’re going through my journey and my career, I went from sketch comedy and doing improv and indie theater to then doing Star Wars and then from there doing [Raya]. It’s nonsensical. It’s miraculous, nonsensical, magical stuff that, for me, I just want people to know and believe that you might go through certain times in your life that are hard and difficult, but coming out on the other side of that and having your support group and being with people who believe in you, there’s nothing like it in the entire world. And I think for me, moving from the Star Wars experiences to then going to Raya has been absolutely miraculous. Raya for me is about celebrating the parts of myself that as a child I was taught that I should hide and what a poetic healing experience that has been.”
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