The Big Picture

Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with
Jackpot!
director Paul Feig and star Awkwafina in this interview.
In
Jackpot!
, Awkwafina plays a character who must survive a deadly game when she becomes the accidental winner of a multi-billion dollar prize.
Feig and Awkwafina discuss action-packed stunts on a tight schedule, improvisation from a comedian-stacked cast, and whether we’ll still be seeing that
Crazy Rich Asians
sequel.

Long overdue, comedian Awkwafina is taking on more feature-leading roles with this year’s heartwarming Quiz Lady opposite Sandra Oh, and now in Paul Feig’s star-studded comedy Jackpot! alongside John Cena. In this interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Feig and Awkwafina discuss very high highs of taking on this action-packed role and other exciting projects that aren’t entirely off the table yet.

In the movie, Awkwafina is Katie Kim, the unlucky winner of the Grand Lottery in a dystopian society where it’s now a free-for-all — whoever kills Katie claims the multi-billion dollar prize. In order to stay alive, Katie reluctantly teams up with Noel Cassidy (Cena), an amateur lottery protection agent who gets his own slice of the prize if Katie makes it to sunset.

During their conversation, which you can watch in the video above or read below, Feig and Awkwafina praise their cast of comedians, including Simu Liu, Ayden Mayeri, Holmes, and more, as well as share which scenes were most challenging throughout this “nail-biter” 40-day production. Awkwafina also hints that a sequel to Jon Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians isn’t completely off the table.

Jackpot! (2024) In the near future, a ‘Grand Lottery’ has been newly established in California – the catch: kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot.Release Date August 15, 2024 Director Paul Feig Runtime 104 Minutes Writers Rob Yescombe

There’s Still Hope for a ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Sequel
Awkwafina’s putting in a good word with Jon Chu!

COLLIDER: Awkwafina, you were missed at Comic-Con.

AWKWAFINA: I heard it was great. It’s nice to see you again.

It’s always what we call an adventure. Before we jump into Jackpot!, I just have to start with an individual question for you. Do you think the Crazy Rich Asians sequel ever happens or have we reached the point where you think it’s never happening?

AWKWAFINA: No, I don’t think it’s never happening, but I don’t know. I haven’t heard news about it, is the truth. We’re all still very close. I’m going to see Jon Chu in a couple of days, so maybe I’ll mine him for some information when I do.

Then let me know. [Laughs]

AWKWAFINA: I will.

Paul, I know you like to improvise on set, and you assembled a group that can do it. For both of you, were there any lines that are in the finished film that were improvised or things that came up at the last second?

PAUL FEIG: Yeah, there’s a bunch. You have a great script, you’ve got great jokes in it, and then we have a bunch of alternate jokes. Then once you get on the set and you’re there and everybody’s interacting, John and Nora can really kind of go and play. Simu was playing, too, and there was a lot of stuff that they were doing that I wouldn’t even dare pitch that they just were throwing at me and I just thought it was hilarious.

AWKWAFINA: I will say Paul also really assembled just an amazing supporting cast of people that I’m very close with to this day—Ayden Mayeri, Michael Hitchcock, Holmes, Taylor Ortega. These are all really, really amazing comedians. They were killing me. Especially the scene with Holmes when they were riffing, and then the scene with Ayden. There were so many lines. It’s amazing working on a Paul Feig movie.

FEIG: Let everybody do their thing.

When you see what’s shooting the next day and you know the scene, how much the night before are you looking at the script and thinking about alts and thinking about what more you can bring, and how much is it really in the moment you’re like, “Oh, shit, wait. We gotta do this?”

FEIG: For me, it’s both those things. Even before we go into production, I get a bunch of writers, I send out the script, and say, “Wherever you think you can top these jokes, do it.” I’ll get this giant list of all these jokes, and so I go in with those, but then when you get to the set, they start coming at you. Then I’ll usually have a writer on the set who’s writing jokes in the moment, too, because it’s in the moment that you get inspired for, like, “Oh, you know what would be funny?” Because suddenly they’re on a set, and there’s a prop over here that’s funny, or just the way they’re interacting. You gotta be loose.

AWKWAFINA: And sometimes some don’t work. But you saying that, it makes a lot of sense to preplan. I just realized that. That would help.

FEIG: [Laughs] But I actually prefer comedic actors who don’t preplan because there’s a different thing when you see somebody waiting for their thing as opposed to in the moment because then it’s natural. Then that’s a funny person being funny in the moment as they would be in real life.

Image via Prime Video

AWKWAFINA: There’s nothing better than someone who has preplanned, and they’re about to do it. [Laughs] You know what I mean?

FEIG: Exactly. It’s like stand-up comics doing improv. You see they’re just waiting for it. “I gotta joke and I’m gonna deliver it.” In the moment.

Awkwafina, I am curious, there’s a funny bit where you’re wearing a goatee in the movie, and it looks good. When you do stuff like that with the practical makeup, are you like, “Please let me go to Starbucks and just wear this out?”

AWKWAFINA: I mean, that wasn’t my initial thought. [Laughs] I remember, I went in the morning and got it on, and I was wearing what I wear to set, which is like, sweatpants and an oversized denim jacket, and I just looked like an Asian guy in, like, a midlife crisis. I looked like my dad a little bit, but love it. It’s very heavy, and it’s kind of itchy. They’re individually putting hairs on you. Like yours, I’m sure, is natural.

Image via Prime Video

No, I have makeup right off-camera.

FEIG: Have you been in makeup for hours, Steve? Is that what you’re saying?

100%. It takes a lot to make me look this good.

Awkwafina Didn’t Plan to Be 50 Feet in the Air, But Here We Are

I know you had a short shooting schedule for how much action is in this movie. Which stunt in the film were you most nervous to pull off in the limited time that you had to make the film?

FEIG: For me, it was the whole end sequence because we’ve got this enormous scene in this auditorium with a million moving parts and a million extras and people up on wires flying around. That was always the one we kept planning for and planning for and planning for. But fortunately, James Young and his team came in and did some cleanup for us when it wasn’t the main cast, with doubles and all that, and the other stunt people. So, we were able to pull it off, but it was it was a nail-biter to do this in 40 days, I tell you.

AWKWAFINA: Yeah, it was intense. I would say that the first opening sequence I was nervous about because it was the one that we had kind of rehearsed a lot. The stunt team was incredible, and there was such a feeling of togetherness, but I think that I was just nervous because I didn’t wanna let people down as I’m moving through different rooms. And then that very end bit. I never knew that I was kind of afraid of heights. I was fully on a safety line, but there was this one moment where I’m reaching for something really high — how high I was?

FEIG: You were about 40 or 50 feet in the air.

AWKWAFINA: I was like, “This is scary.” Just how high it is. You never want to see whatever those things are in a theater.

FEIG: The catwalks and stuff.

AWKWAFINA: Yeah, I don’t want to see that stuff. Not up close.

When you decided to be an actor, I’m sure that’s the first thing you thought of, “I’m gonna be 40 feet up in the air.”

FEIG: If you’re doing well, you will be!

AWKWAFINA: [Laughs] Totally.

Jackpot! is available to stream on Prime Video.

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