The Big Picture

Quiz Lady is a hilarious and heartwarming film about the bond between two mismatched sisters, played brilliantly by Awkwafina and Sandra Oh. Stars Awkwafina and Sandra Oh discuss their love of game shows and their close bond as scene partners with Collider in an exclusive interview, while highlighting their ability to bounce off of each other to create genuine chemistry onscreen. The pair also reflected on their experience working with the late Paul Reubens in his final performance.

There’s no better way to wrap up the year than with laughter and thankfully, 2023 delivered on its roster of funny films. While Barbie might have led the pack, audiences were in for a treat all year round with laugh-out-loud films like Joy Ride, The Blackening, and No Hard Feelings. In capping off the hilarity while becoming one of the funniest movies to debut at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September, the hilarious and wholesome Quiz Lady is one of the year’s best slapstick comedies. Starring Awkwafina and Sandra Oh as two estranged sisters embarking on a cross-country road trip to pay off their mother’s gambling debts, the Jessica Yu-directed comedy’s absurd premise tees up some of the most outrageous and cleverest laughs thanks to the sharp writing of Jen D’Angelo with smart zingers and vibrant performances.

Following the film’s well-received Hulu and Disney+ premiere this past November in the U.S. and Canada, the stars and producers of Quiz Lady, Awkwafina and Oh sat down with Collider following the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike for an exclusive interview. While the two shared their love of game shows, they also had a chance to talk about their characters, the connection the pair share, collaborating with Yu nearly a year before production, and what it was like working with the late and “joyous” Pee-wee Herman star, Paul Reubens, in what is now his final performance.

Quiz Lady A gameshow-obsessed woman and her estranged sister work together to help cover their mother’s gambling debts. Release Date November 3, 2023 Director Jessica Yu Main Genre Comedy

COLLIDER: I have the most important question to ask, and I think this is going to be a really fun one. Is there a comfort game show you love watching or have been dying to be on for both of you?

SANDRA OH: I just wanted to start singing the theme song to Definition. I’m dating myself here. I feel like I have too much anxiety about game shows because my sister is amazing at trivia and amazing at game shows. And I remember, absolutely, when I was younger, just trying to get her on, actually trying to get her on to Definition because she was so good at it. I think she took that mantle up in my family regarding the comfort of game shows.

AWKWAFINA: I love Jeopardy, but you need a lot of knowledge for that. I like the stakes of that [show]… She was a little bit angry and she had short red hair and she’d stand in the middle and like kind of roast everybody. Do you remember that show?

Oh, yes! The Weakest Link.

AWKWAFINA: The Weakest Link! Yes, I would have loved to do that because there’s so much dopamine and anxiety going on.

OH: Oh, you know what? I gotta tell you, when we were growing up, we would watch the Family Feud. We would watch it together as a family.

Awkwafina and Sandra Oh’s Chemistry in ‘Quiz Lady’ Is on Another Level

Something that I really loved about this movie was the chemistry between you two. It’s so authentic and genuine. What is one thing you each value about the other as a scene partner that might also have given you the chance to extend your character in ways you probably couldn’t without one another?

OH: Great question.

AWKWAFINA: That is a great question. I think Sandra, as a scene partner, she’s just an incredible actress. She’s in it, and I think that to bounce off of somebody who is in it; it allows you to be in it too. It felt extremely fluid. It wasn’t like we were doing a scene sometimes, like our conversations outside of the scenes versus when we went into it. She was a very, very trustworthy scene partner who just sees you and reacts off of you constantly. She’s an incredible actress.

OH: Nora is very interesting. She’s very, very interesting. Like, I don’t know what she’s going to do, so you have to really pay attention. Not everyone’s like that, but she happens to do that. That’s just the way that she is, but she’s interesting. And then also I’d say she’s a great improviser. When you’re talking about comedy, we were very, very attuned to each other because that has to be in that realm for it to be alive. I will really echo what she said, we really worked on our relationship, not in a hard way. We really spent time together, we embraced each other, and we really cultivated that relation, which continues on. We have a deep relationship continuing on. So when we were in scenes, it was like you’re just in the pocket of your characters, and you’re just reacting off of each other.

Related ‘Quiz Lady’ Director Reveals the Shocking Story Idea Awkwafina Pitched “There’s a traumatic memory that the sisters have that involves digging a hole in the yard that is straight out of Awkwafina’s mind.”

Awkwafina, I heard you, Sandra, and director Jessica Yu, you guys collaborated on this like a year before filming, and you shared all these different scenarios, including the scene where Anne is digging a hole? So my question is, was it ever supposed to be that outlandish, or was there an alternate sort of scene because I feel like that worked so perfectly? It’s so tense, the story is so tender, but then it gets into something that’s very out of the blue. You don’t expect it, and I remember everybody in the theater when we were watching it, we were like, “Oh,” and it’s very quiet, but then the moment you say what it is, it’s like, “Oh,” and everyone erupts in laughter and it’s so funny. The same thing with the dad’s death.

AWKWAFINA: I will say, during that summer, we definitely added things into it. The script, which was pretty much there, it hadn’t really been written for Asian American, Asian women. So, me and Sandra — Jen [D’Angelo] obviously wanted us to do this — we wanted to fill in by telling stories. So I’m just gonna say that some of it’s true. They’re based on stories that we really shared that really happened to us. I think that when it’s the truth or it’s a true story that maybe happened to you or someone in your life and you retell it, it’s just the truth. But I won’t tell you which ones are. [Laughs]

OH: Yeah, but I would say it’s also common. It’s common, and it’s so elemental. So yes, during that time, there were some of us in that group who shared stories of that fundamental thing of, like, when you’re a kid, and you’re not in control, how an expression can happen through your waterworks, you know what I mean? And just saying “shit in the hole” is funny. There’s something elemental that is really funny and I think that is really, really relatable. I’ll tell you, in an audience of, let’s say 800 people, I bet you 600 of them shat their pants when they were a kid.

Sandra Oh Plays Against Type in ‘Quiz Lady’

Yeah, it’s true. [Laughs] And Sandra, you really play against type in this. This is a role we’ve never really seen you in. I’m wondering, what does it take to create a balance of someone who has shared Anne’s trauma but also managed to really put it aside for her little sister that she’s being the authoritative figure to help her out?

OH: Because there’s such an age difference between the characters, you can see the way that each of the sisters dealt with their father leaving and then dying and then also their mother’s gambling issue. So they just kind of went opposite directions. One was all about chasing her dreams and kind of not really being in reality, and the other one was really…

AWKWAFINA: Tuning everything out.

OH: Really kind of tuning everything out, but making her world really small because she just did not feel safe. And so I think there’s an emotional thread and a character thread that you can start building from there because we’re always building in some ways in opposition from each other. Because then you create tension, you create dynamic, but mostly you create comedy. And then, of course, they come together in that emotional moment because the film is about that, they have each other’s back. So, all the steps from Jen D’Angelo’s script were there, of how these two sisters approach life from opposite ends because of their shared trauma, but then come to this place where they are just really with each other and accept each other a little bit more than they did before.

Sandra Oh and Awkwafina Talk About Their Time Working With Paul Reubens on ‘Quiz Lady’
Image via 20th Century Fox

For sure. Before I let you go, I do have to ask about that cameo. It was so perfect, and it just tied everything together. What was it like spending that time with Paul Reubens in those final scenes? It was such a beautiful thing to see. I don’t know if Jessica told you guys, but at the TIFF presentation, the crew came out wearing red bow ties to honor him and everyone in the crowd, even the woman beside me, was just crying because she thought it was so sweet. Please share your experience with him. I would love to hear it.

AWKWAFINA: I mean, I was obsessed with Pee-wee Herman, so meeting him… I mean, I don’t know if this is under wraps, but Sandra really helped us because one thing that never changed in the script was that cameo. It was always specifically him. It was not changed. And I just remember thinking my dreams would not be able to come true that much, that he would say yes, and Sandra made it happen. He was a huge fan of Sandra and he came out and did it. It was our first-day shooting, right?

OH: It was our first day.

AWKWAFINA: And he was such a pleasure.

OH: Yeah, it was your birthday! It was your birthday, it was the very first day, it was meeting Paul, and it was like that. If we didn’t get Paul, this entire Francine storyline wouldn’t make sense. It’s just one of those things where it’s like you hang on in this industry long enough and you’re going to know people. So, we were having a meeting and then I was like [mimes texting], “Okay… Okay, I have Paul.” [Laughs]

AWKWAFINA: No, literally! And I was like, “You just…? What do you mean?” Like, that’s how much of a baller Sandra is. [Laughs] Wow. Yeah, it happened almost immediately.

OH: Yeah, it did. And then it was like he’s all the things that you hoped he would be, which is so joyous, so lovely, so odd and so genuine, and generous, generous. We were very, very, very lucky, and we miss him a lot.

Quiz Lady is available to watch on Hulu in the U.S.

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