The stars and writer/director of the Prime Video limited series Foreigners sat in the Deadline Studio at Prime Experience on Sunday. Based on Janice YK Lee’s bestselling novel of the same name, Foreigners revolves around the lives of a group of expatriates in Hong Kong – more specifically, the story of three women from different backgrounds who are connected by a tragic event, grief, loss and complicated family problems.
Our panel on Sunday included star/executive producer Nicole Kidman, actors Ji-Young Yoo, Sarayu Blue, Jack Huston and Brian Yee, and creator/writer/director/executive producer Lulu Wang.
Watch the conversation here and scroll down to see a photo gallery from the event.
Kidman, who has become as prolific a producer as she is an actress through her Blossom Films, also just received the prestigious AFI Lifetime Achievement Award over the weekend, which was celebrated by all Foreigners colleagues as we began our studio session with them on the sidelines of Amazon’s FYC event. As a producer, Kidman knew exactly the formula that makes a compelling series.
“I mean, it was a labor of love, and then when Lulu came in she said, ‘I’m ready, but the way to get there is I have to be able to control the whole thing and know exactly what I’m going to have.’ . the agency and the ability to do so.’ And that’s what we hope to do as a production company, is provide that support. So a lot of it is just that, and then you cast incredible actors and that’s it, the job is done,” Kidman said, making it sound much easier than filming a show of this magnitude in Hong Kong.
It’s also a very emotional role for Kidman, playing a woman whose young son disappears under the watch of a babysitter, played by Yoo. She said it was Wang who determined the role she would play. “She said, ‘No, you’re Margaret. “You’re going to be Margaret.” And that’s what I mean by handing the project over to the director and the director designing it. …And it’s so much about a marriage that’s under duress, but it’s a good marriage, and that was kind of the heart of the sadness for me, because when you see these marriages, a lot of them are destroyed, but this is a marriage , which is not destroyed.
Wang, director of acclaimed feature films such as The good byetold us why she wanted to make this film her television debut and, in particular, why she wanted to work with Kidman.
“Nicole and I started and as soon as you get to know each other you know she’s going to dive deep into it and she said, ‘This is a show about women, it’s a show about grief, let me tell you about my own.’ To tell sadness, don’t do it.’ “I’ll tell you about my dad,” and we just talked, we talked about our own mothers, and it was a show by women for women,” Wang said of the experience of the six-part series, which offered an opportunity for diversity too . “And that’s it, an opportunity I couldn’t turn down, to have that kind of creative freedom, to put the people we wanted both behind and in front of the camera, to create an ecosystem and a process, which is really healthy for us.” Creative people. That’s why I said yes. Added to this was the incredible source material, Janice YK Lee’s book and the themes drawn from the novel.”
Nicole Kidman
Michael Buckner for Deadline
Sarayu Blue
Michael Buckner for Deadline
Ji-young Yoo
Michael Buckner for Deadline
Lulu Wang
Michael Buckner for Deadline
Jack Huston
Michael Buckner for Deadline
Brian Tee
Michael Buckner for Deadline
Yoo, who plays Mercy, and Blue, who plays Hilary, explained their characters’ storylines and the way they became so connected despite all the complications. Yee, who plays Clark, Margaret’s husband, and Huston, who plays David, Hilary’s husband but who also has an affair with Mercy, both explained the complexities of the key men in this story surrounding the three women.
Huston, grandson of legendary director John Huston, had worked with Wang on her first feature film, but had to place special physical demands on him from his director Foreigners. “That was our first conversation: ‘There are two provisions.’ First, you need to gain 30 pounds. The other is that you have to be completely naked.’ That’s naked with 30 (extra) pounds on her body, and I thought, ‘Well, just for you, Lulu,'” he said, laughing.