Posted in: Exclusive, Interview, Movies | Tagged: exclusive, interview, Roy Huang, Saban Films, Sam Song Li, Seth McTigue, Take the Night

Take the Night Star Roy Huang on Crime Thriller, Asians in Filmmaking

Roy Huang is a star on the rise, coming a long way since his debut in the 2009 John Cena-starred 12 Rounds. He's amassed quite a few notable credits since, including Lifetime's Army Wives, FOX's Castle and Scream Queens, and CBS's The Young and the Restless. Huang has a starring role in the indie crime thriller Saban Films' Take the Night, a twisted tale of sibling rivalry and family secrets where an elaborate surprise birthday stunt heads into increasingly dark places when career criminals are hired to stage a fake kidnapping go rogue. Older brother William (Huang) secures a crew to stage a fake kidnapping of his brother Robert (Sam Song Li), but the crew has plans of their own. The brothers must put aside their sibling rivalry if they want to save the family fortune. Huang spoke to Bleeding Cool about working with Seth McTigue (who also wrote and starred in the film), making his feature debut as a director, his love of cinema, and Asian representation.

Bleeding Cool: What interested you in 'Take the Night?'
Roy Huang: What initially got me interested was they offered me the part [laughs]. I'm not quite at a point in my career where I'm exactly picking and choosing the parts that I get. It really helped that they wanted me. In addition, I thought it was a very unique story, especially for it being centered around the two Asian-American brothers and diving into their relationship and all the things going on with the father. I just thought that's a very interesting story and dynamic to play.

BC: How would you describe working with Seth McTigue on the film as a costar and director?
Huang: Seth was really open to feedback, insights, opinions, and all that stuff. He would frequently, on set, come to us and ask, "Hey, how am I doing with this? What do you guys feel about this? What do you think about this? Or what are your thoughts on this?" I love that because one of the reasons that I got into filmmaking is it's a collaborative process where we're all kind of sitting around trying to solve problems and figure out how to create this thing that we hope is going to go out in the world and that people are going to love.

BC: What was the most difficult aspect of filming? Was there any particular sequence or action?
Huang: We're shooting so many different scenes out of order, especially with my characters in so many of them, keeping track of where we are in the story when we're filming, knowing what happened before and what happened after. We might shoot the last scene, then we might shoot a scene in the middle, and then we might go back to the end and [film] something for the beginning. We really had to keep track of things like wardrobe and props; specifically the watch my character wears. Really keeping track of that and having the script supervisor on it about all the little details of where we were in the story.

BC: As a lead, was there a form of creative autonomy afforded for your character?
Huang: Seth had a really strong idea of who these characters were when he wrote them. He was very open to making it feel very collaborative. The whole process, especially when it came to representing the two brothers, their family, and their culture. I remember one scene they were going back and forth, and he was like, "How would you guys do this?" I said, "We would wear our shoes in the house." He was like, "That's how they are. That's how it should be done." It's great how he's open to new ideas and different viewpoints.

BC: What films inspired you to get into acting?
Huang: When I was a kid, I was big into 'Star Wars' and the Marvel movies and still do. I still go back and watch a lot of the movies from the nineties. Like once in a while, I'll put on 'Good Will Hunting,' 'Remember the Titans', or 'Gladiator.' Those are the ones that stuck with me. There are so many movies that I remember that I want to be able to show my kids one day and be like, "They told these great stories, and these are the movies that I used to watch when I was younger that shaped my outlook on the world."

BC: You've been around for over a decade in the industry; how do you feel the representation aspect of Asians is in Hollywood? Do you feel it's improved?
Huang: Absolutely. I think it has improved. Maybe the public isn't seeing it yet, but there's going to be there's a lot of stuff coming down the pipeline. I know like two or three Asian-led shows that are going to be coming to Netflix that we're not seeing yet. There are movies like 'Crazy Rich Asians' and all these other things and TV shows like 'Squid Game.' I really think people are starting to realize that they want to see different kinds of people on screen. We've seen all those great films already like 'Good Will Hunting' with Matt Damon playing the guy that's from Boston. Now let's see some of the other stories. Audiences are starting to wake up to that fact. We want to see other different kinds of people, whether it is Asian or African-American or Hispanic or Latino, whatever it may be. It's just going to continue to grow. There is some very exciting stuff coming down the pipeline that people will be seeing very soon.

Take The Night, which also stars Brennan Keel, Shomari Love, Antonio Aaron, and Grace Serrano, is in theaters and comes out on demand and digital on July 12th.

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