Unscripted Fun and Laughter with the Joy Ride Cast!

Hey, I'm Allison with FlickDirect, and I am here with Ashley, Sabrina, Stephanie, and Sherry to talk about Joyride. Hello, how are you? We love Miami. We're a lot of fun, we party. You do. All the time. When you all read the original script, did you think there was more you could add to it to make it raunchier? Or did you think, "Oh, I need to tone this down." My first thought was not, "This needs to be toned down." I think I felt very liberated, you know, just reading the words on the page that were so brilliantly written by Cherry and Teresa.

It was honestly perfect. And the four of us got, you know, and the four of us got the opportunity to bring it to life. - Yeah, I think more, we love that it's over the top and especially because anybody, you know, we might have a lot of us not have the history of being told like, you're too much or this is too much. And so we are just like, let's really go for it.

But in terms of, I also think the raunch comes from, it's a very creative raunch. Like I've never seen a lot of these iconic vignettes to say before. - Sure, sure. - And I think that I'm very, I'm personally pleased with the amount that we have. - I'm so pleased. - Yeah. - I'm so pleased. - I would say that I was game. And I would say that, in fact, many times the writers told us to tone it down.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah. There were a lot of fun moments that like, And some of our favorites were in the magic of the moment too. So it was really cool to be able to play. And it's nice that you all seem to have that camaraderie so that it worked so well. And I will say I will never look at a basketball the same way you do. The Oregon. Yeah. Our writers have tried it and I'm just saying if you don't have plans tonight, Amazon Prime at the Oregon.

Listen, my husband doesn't want to be jealous of a basketball. But I do have one of those massage guns. - Well, okay, it's a team sport. - Yeah, it's kind of a team sport. - It's real therapy, you know what I mean? - Yeah. - Real relaxing. - At the heart of this movie, there is a search for identity. In your real life, how have all of you kind of done that or have you done it at this point in your lives?

- Wow. - Is it a work in progress? - Oh, I mean, yeah, I think just like healing, just like grief, nothing is overnight. You know, it is a constant state of just like discovering yourself and evolving and learning, you know? I think I felt that way about queerness. I think I felt that way about Asian-ness. It's not overnight to embrace who you are because of really society and what it has, you know, brainwashed you into thinking about your identities.

But I think in this place, in my life right now, especially being on this, you know, poster, I feel just like the most whole. You know, I feel 100% me more than ever, but there's still room to go, you know what I mean? - Always. For the rest of you, were there moments, either on set or before set, that you felt, this is part of my identity, this is part of who I am, and this is what I want to address in the film?

- Yeah, I mean, for Deadeye especially, they were, yeah, I got the part of Deadeye when I was honestly pretty early and learning that I'm gender nonconforming, And as we were in rehearsals for Deadeye and reading over the script, it just felt really clear to me and the creators that that might be true of Deadeye the character. And there was something really weird and meta and cool to be kind of growing alongside this character.

And then since, I mean, I definitely don't have everything figured out. Just kidding, my life's perfect. (laughing) - I think it's also like the true privilege and like honor, dishonor to us all, but like honor of a lifetime to be able to have some like life imitate art or art imitate life and to really find out something about yourself and then to have audiences all over the world connect to exactly that.

And to know that maybe something that you felt so alone in, everybody else feels as well. At some point, I think that in terms of like identity, I think that growing up, we're so scared of having a part of our identity or quality of us. We are defining quality, so we try to hide that. Sometimes, I know I felt that way many times in this industry, the way I grew up, with my Asian heritage.

And just this movie really opened up that world to me of realizing that that's just part of the fabric of who I am, and it's also something that I'm very proud of makes me who I am. Yeah, that was really reflected in the movie as well. - I think it's awesome that this movie is the first of its kind, and also it is wild that is, in 2023, it is the first of its kind.

But I feel really proud that we get to be a really small part of something we didn't get to see growing up so that everyone else who's coming after us can point to this and say, that's been done, so we can do it again and again and again, and better and better and better. The ceiling opens up to sky, cloud, rain, abundance. Yes, space, galaxy. - All right, very quickly, fun question at the end.

Who of the four of you would be most likely to have a tattoo in a rather intimate place? - Ashley has the most tattoos so probably-- - Oh, okay. - I was gonna say Ashley too. - Angel was pretty intimate. - But I think we're all going to get a tattoo together. - For sure. - Probably tattoo on each other. - Yeah, I'm at least opposed, I guess, if that means anything.

- Yeah, yeah. - All right, well, thank you so much. I've seen this movie twice, I loved it both times, I cried harder the second time. I can't wait for audiences to see it. Thank you. - Thank you so much for the love. Thank you. (airplane engine roaring) (engine revving) Safety is important