Tapestry of Different Characters: A Conversation with ‘Expats’ Creator and Showrunner Lulu Wang

Set against the complex tapestry of Hong Kong residents, Expats depicts a multifaceted group of women after a single encounter sets off a chain of life-altering events that leaves everyone navigating the intricate balance between blame and accountability.

There’s an unsettling revolving door of emotions that hit you when watching Lulu Wang’s Expats. There’s a tension that keeps you coming back for more – and it’s because of this world and the women that we experience it through. And quite frankly, the tension can’t be cut with a knife – you’d need a state-of-the-art jackhammer to break through. But when it does break, emotional balance seems to be restored.

Creator, showrunner, writer, and director Lulu Wang (The Farewell) spoke with Script about the challenges and creative opportunities while adapting author Janice Y.K. Lee’s novel, The Expatriates, focusing on the unique setting of Hong Kong through the lens of an outsider, and the emotional integrity of the series, and so much more. 

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: How did this project come on your radar and what about it resonated for you emotionally that you knew that you could adapt and tell this story?

Lulu Wang: Nicole [Kidman] brought the book to me. She had optioned it and was always really interested in Hong Kong as a setting. I think at one point, she had had the opportunity to make something in Hong Kong with Wong Kar-wai and it didn't end up happening. And so, she saw this as a great opportunity to shoot in Hong Kong and really loves the female characters.

And I totally agreed. I read the novel and just really fell in love with the characters and the world. Janice's [Y.K. Lee] beautiful writing and how nuanced and complicated these relationships were, and how different all of these women were. And it really felt like the perfect world to have this tapestry of different characters. And because Hong Kong is such a unique place filled with so many different types of people.

Sadie: The process of adapting this book, and breaking it out into these six episodes, while staying true to the emotional integrity of what these women are going through, and not veering away from it. What was that process like for you?

Lulu: Whenever I'm adapting something, whether that's my own story, or someone else's story, I want to hold on to the seed of the thing that made me fall in love with it. And so, in a way, that's the lightning in a bottle, like the first moment you respond emotionally to something, you have to hold on to that. And for me, it was the lyricism of the writing and of course how do you translate lyrical writing about characters inner thoughts onto screen?

And that was the challenge. I never saw it as like, 'Well, let's attach a plot to it,' because I felt like the book isn’t driven by a whodunit plot. And yet I couldn't stop reading, I was totally entranced. And I just wanted to make sure that that same intrigue and interest was translated into the series. Where we have actually so many other tools, we don't have the lyricism of prose, but we have incredible actors and faces and expression and light and sound. And so how do you translate prose into all of these senses?

Sadie: And you and your team totally knocked it out of the park. I keep thinking about your direction, and the cinematography, coupled with sound design and editing, but how you frame the women in these shots. I'd love to hear about your own visual process and putting your unique lens on this as well.

Lulu: Anna Franquesa-Solano, she's the cinematographer, we did The Farewell together, and coming on to Expats, we knew that we wanted to create a new visual language that serves the show. We never feel like we have a style as filmmakers, it's the story that dictates the style rather than it about us having a signature. So, in many ways, the filmmakers should be invisible in the process of what you ultimately see. And we don't want people to notice our style, we want it to really feel like the style of the show and the style that serves the story.

And so first, we talked a lot about Hong Kong. And we were really adamant about not replicating other Hong Kong filmmakers that we admire so much. Because I think that there is a particular look that has become iconic, that has been iconized by certain incredible filmmakers from Hong Kong. And we knew that we were bringing a different lens to it, first of all, as non-locals, as foreigners. We didn't want to romanticize Hong Kong, you know, either and so that was the conversation like what is the lens? You know, it’s an outsider's lens, much like The Farewell - sometimes you're like, 'Well, you're not from here, you can't tell this story.' It's like, well, we're telling the story of outsiders in that place. So, of course it is through that lens. But how do you do it in a way where it's not a tourism video, right, and you're not applying this romanticism to a place that you don't know innately.

And so, we talked a lot about, particularly in television, it's quite common to shoot things on stages, and then have an establishing shot in the real place, and then just go on to the stage. And it was really, really important to us to connect all of the exteriors with the interior, so it never felt like we were on a stage. And then even the sets that we were building on stages, it was a combination, where we built it, like for example, the apartments, we built that modeled after a real apartment building. We changed the layout a little bit, but we mimicked the materials and the design of a real building. And we shot the lobby in the real building, and then we shot the units on stage, but that way, the characters, we could follow them inside of the building, and up into the elevator into the apartment, to really create a sense of space. We wanted to put the audience in this place…immersive I guess is the word.

Sadie: Yeah. In terms of the lighting, because it feels like you are in these spaces, and feels like it was done with practical lights, you’re keeping that mood. But the fact that you've built stages for even the apartments, you guys are doing movie magic over there.

Lulu: Yeah, and it was very new for us to work with green screens and pull off these magic tricks. Because we do come from this school of indie filmmaking that is so much about the practical. And there's a respectfulness to that right, in a setting in a city that's so important to so many people to really do the research and be in those spaces. So, we wanted to honor that, even with the builds. And then also really work with the local crew to be like, 'OK, don't just take us to where all the other movies have wanted to go to shoot - the popular shooting locations.' We actually were trying to stay away from anything too grandiose. We really wanted to make sure that it felt really real and grounded for the characters. And we were in those spaces with people. We were never really just shooting a location for the sake of shooting a location.

Sadie: It all has a purpose and motivation behind it. Did you have direct access to the author, Janice? And if so, what were those conversations like? Obviously, you had to take some creative liberties to make this into a TV series, but to have her as a resource.

Lulu: Yeah, actually…so, when Nicole came to me, one of my first requests in making the series was to ask Janice to be in the writers' room with me. Traditionally, that's not done because people who write books are not necessarily interested or have any experience writing for television. But it was really important to me, and I talked to Janice, and she was willing to do it. So, she was one of the five, including me, women who are writing in the room.

And that was important, because yeah, like you said, she is such a great resource, and to have that person day in and day out who lived this experience, who spent so much time there and created these characters to have that as a resource and to say, 'Hey, how does it feel if we expand on this, or if we changed that?' And Janice was so great, because she said, 'We're making something entirely new. Don't feel precious about protecting my book, because the book is done, so we should do what's best for the show.' But the rest of us because we all love the book so much, we would constantly go back and quote the book and be like, 'Oh, but this should go back in. I love this line,’ or ‘I love this dynamic between these two women.’

So, all these little gems from the book were things that having five of us kind of just all grab, ‘I love this, I love this.’ And we threw all of that onto a whiteboard, all the things that we loved. And we started working from there. And every time we got stuck, we'd all just go back through the book, and be like, 'Oh, I forgot about this, let's put that in.' We would just keep going back to the source material, the things that sparked joy, [laughs] and sparked inspiration for us. And every time we did that, we would still always find something in the book to bring in. So, Janice was wonderful to collaborate with.

Sadie: When you were putting that room together, what kind of voices were you looking for to really shape out this world for you?

Lulu: Well, the first writer that I knew I wanted to work with was Alice Bell. She is an Australian writer who has worked with Nicole before, and they had been developing this project together. So, I met with Alice and her parents were actually expats in Hong Kong. So, she would go and spend time with them when they were living there, so she had a lot of experience, not as an expert herself, but just having gone.

And then I brought a writer named Vera Miao because she is a friend of mine and a genre director herself, writer-director. And we've always talked a lot as friends about our own personal projects and we come from very different schools. I've done a lot of dramas and comedies, and she has worked a lot in the genre world in horror, specifically. But I found that a lot of tools, when we talk about storytelling in general, genre tends to be so atmospheric, and you have to convey tension. 

A lot of the time you're trying to convey tension, and withholding, right, withholding the horror, withholding the action itself, the event itself, it lends just as much an atmosphere and tension as actually showing the thing that everyone's scared is going to happen. 

And I knew that for the series, so much of the drama, and the tension was going to come from things not spoken. You know, like emotional trauma, grief, loss, they're these very abstract feelings that are beautifully written in prose in the book. But how do we translate that onto the screen? And in a drama, perhaps, there's people yelling at each other, or there's action or plot that's driving that, and I wanted it to be much more atmospheric. And so, she was really great in just bringing a totally different lens.

And then, Gursimran Sandhu is an incredible writer. And I read some of her scripts. And we just talked. And I was really amazed by her own personal writing - the pilots that she's developed, she's incredibly funny. And she has so many of her own stories. And then she talked about her experiences working in writers' room for most of her career, and how there was a divergence between her personal work and her stories and the type of writers’ rooms that she's been in, where she's done incredible jobs in. 

But I really saw an opportunity for her to tell some of her own stories. And I knew that that character of Hilary, she wasn't written as anything, I just knew that in the book, she was written as white, but I wanted to make her dark skinned, because I really wanted to, in looking at the kaleidoscope of experiences, I wanted to make sure we were looking at somebody who was darker skinned in East Asia where there is a lot of colorism and how that plays into privilege and class. And so, when I met Gursimran, we talked a lot about that. And I saw a lot of opportunities to delve into that particular perspective.

Sadie: There’s so much authenticity to each of these characters – they feel like real women and what they're going through and that tension, too. For those characters' voices and those different perspectives, once casting was in place, did you ever go back through to retool those voices with what these actors were bringing to the characters? I just keep thinking of Ji-young [Yoo] and just she wears it all on her face and in her eyes…

Lulu: I always talk a lot with the actors about the characters. Actors bring so much that you when you start working with actors, you kind of realize like, ‘I've overwritten, there's so much that doesn't need to be said.’ And so there was constant tweaking of dialogue with the actors, of what feels is the most natural for them. 

Particularly, for Ji-young, I think she was already written as a young woman who wears a lot of masks - she's really masking - she's a very internal character. She carries this, I call it generational trauma, but she calls it a curse. And from a young age, she was told that she's cursed and she's never going to escape it - what's the point of even trying?

And so, in many ways, it's this very fatalist young person. The role required just a lot of vulnerability, but strength at the same time, where you think she's cool, she's great, she's got it all handled. And then there's these moments, when she's alone, when you see that she doesn't. And it was that juxtaposition that was all in her eyes. She had a lot of moments in the series where, actually there's just silence and space, we're just seeing her in an apartment, amongst other friends. And it's just all on her face. Because the thing that she's saying, isn't what she's feeling, you know, and so all of her dialogue is actually, other than when she's with Charly, there's a few moments, she doesn't really allow the pain and the vulnerability to come out.

Sadie: Was there a thematic anchor for you? Making sure you're keeping that tonal consistency and keeping that tension, keeping these women moving from the pilot episode to the finale.

Lulu: We talked so much about the ending, of course, because I knew that I wanted some kind of hope for these three women. But I also wanted to make it really realistic. I didn't want it to feel like, 'Well, they all now forgive each other, and everything's forgotten. And we're good.' Right? The show was, for me, it was ultimately about resilience. And not about like, OK, we have to let it all go or forgive, but how do we move on. And we don't get stuck. You can feel these things, you can be angry, but you can't get stuck in that anger, you can feel it and move through it, and keep moving through your life. And so, I wanted some kind of resolution.

And we ultimately had this three-way conversation where we aren't really sure who's saying what to whom, but in a way, they are all each other's voices, because they have all been victims and perpetrators in each other's stories. And that there's a mutual sense of grace that they're giving each other of like, ‘I've made make mistakes, you've made mistakes.’ And some mistakes are bigger than others, of course. But they are mistakes. 

And so, it was the sense of not forgiving, and not saying all is forgotten, but of saying, ‘I acknowledge you as a human being. And I want the best for you.’ Because as Hilary says, ‘If you hold on to that anger, you're the one who gets poisoned ultimately,’ even like the relationship with her father. I think all of us have to find a way to let things go and that was the sense that I wanted was this forward-onward kind of momentum for all of them in that we see them all taking steps towards their the next step in their life.

Sadie: Being an indie filmmaker and stepping into this world of TV, being a showrunner and wearing so many creative hats, were there any creative challenges for you? Or maybe something during that whole process from development to post, that you're like, ‘This was such a big learning moment, and this is something I will carry with me moving forward.’

Lulu: Yeah, definitely. I think that I underestimated the scale of this project. On The Farewell, we shot 26 days. And by the time we shot 26 days on Expats, we barely even made a dent. [laughs] We ultimately shot for, like, over 100-something days. So, the scale is not only stamina, but it's keeping tone and voice intact, amidst like, all of that - days, and days and days and months and months of shooting - and kind of figuring out where are my bearings. We're building this and we've got rain, and we're doing all of these things. 

But ultimately, that's not what the show is. Doesn't matter what effects you have, or how big, what is the emotional core? And what is my voice in this? What is the story that I'm telling? And it's a story about women. And it's a story about the complexity of human beings, and that they're not good or bad. And life isn't good or bad. It's always 'and.' The more that I could hold on to that, that's what got me through.

I think the lesson that I’ll always carry is I've always had this cautiousness around growth that is too big of a leap, like a growth spurt in a way, and we all need to grow. But I think that I really believe in sustainable ways of growing in which I can bring my team with me, we can still have the process that we always had, we can really grow as artists and not just commercially. There has to be that balance, and an ecosystem that works for us. And so, doing something of this scale, and really fighting for that was the most important thing.

And what I'll always remember is that no matter what projects I go on to, there will always be the precondition that I can bring my team, I can work in the way that we work; like the kind of shotlisting we do, the kind of rehearsals that we need, because fighting for that is how you can ultimately stand by the final result. If you give up your own process, and you follow someone else's process and it doesn't turn out, then you're compromised. We just learned a lot about 'OK, this is the way we work.' And when we follow the way we work, it works for us.

Sadie: Especially when you're putting in those hours building your filmmaking tribe, there's a reason why you do that. The sound design and the music in this show is just another great layer in this show. What was that creative process like tapping into that with your composer Alex Weston?

Lulu: Alex is incredible. And we had so much fun building it out…he started sending stuff really early that we could even play on set and just trying to find the sound. We started out with this like Mogwai soundtrack as a temp that was in Les Revenants, it's this French series called The Returned. And I just love that there was like a haunting, but the haunting wasn't just atmospheric, there's like a beat, like a drive, it's going somewhere. So, we started there.

And then instrumentation-wise, we started in a more digital world, like a sliding electric guitar. But it started to feel too much like Blade Runner, which I think can often be like a cliche with Hong Kong or Tokyo, like Asian cities. 

And so, we were like, 'OK, this doesn't really quite feel right.' And we just kept exploring. The one thing that I had, because I'm a classically trained pianist, and I just kept saying, I don't know why, but no piano. [laughs] And he kept wanting to go towards piano. And I always felt like piano can be really sentimental, and soft. And I feel like these women, of course, they're soft on the inside, but that's not what they present. They present this strength and shield. 

I wanted the music to also have that, like, 'We're good, I'm good, let's move on.' And then there's something haunting in the background, like a ghost is always there, even though they have a propulsion to move forward. And then we really saved the piano for David, for example, that character, because he just is sad. And so, there's something kind of funny but sad about giving him the solo piano. [laughs] It was a bit of comic relief in that.

And then Episode Five, of course, we incorporated a lot more piano. One of the things we love to do is talk early on about like, the limitations, what are we going to not do? And that's a really fun creative exercise. Because if you really put yourself in a box and say, ‘These are the things we're definitely not going to do. And here's why.’ It helps you to create a sound and be more creative.

And we always start with one theme. In order to find the sound, because it can be so daunting to approach a soundtrack for six and a half hours, and so if we just start with one piece, like one thematic melody, that feels like the show, then we can grow from there as the center. And so, the theme that we found first was “The Perpetrators.” And when he nailed that, we were like, 'OK, let's multiply it, do all of the variations and put it everywhere.' And so there are a lot of variations to that. But that was the beginning.

Sadie: Yeah, and it works. It's such an earworm too. There’s emotional balance with the music and sound design when needed in this moment, or when it's not there too, there’s power behind the absence of sound.

Lulu: Totally, that's what's so wonderful about Alex because sometimes we'll talk and he'll be like, ‘I sort of just feel like this should not be music. I would get in the way. The sound design is so incredible.’ And so, he worked really closely with our incredible sound designers and editors to know when to pull back is just as important as when to be present and full on.

Expats is available to stream on Prime Video.