"I had to be ashamed of": Kelly Marie Tran reveals how The Wedding Banquet helped her step out of insecurities about her queer identity

Kelly Marie Tran stars as Angela in the upcoming remake of the 1993 film, The Wedding Banquet. The romantic comedy film directed by Andrew Ahn is set to hit theatres on April 18, 2025.

The movie follows the story of four queer friends living in Seattle. Min, a closeted Korean, wants to stay in America to live with his boyfriend Chris. However, his family wants him to move back to Korea to take over the family business. Min comes up with a plan where he stages a green-card marriage with Angela and, in return, agrees to fund her IVF treatments with partner Lee.

In an interview with Variety on April 16, 2025, Tran opened up about how The Wedding Banquet empowered her to come out as queer.

"I’ve been able to learn how to celebrate the parts of myself that, at the time, I was scared of, or I was made to feel like I had to be ashamed of," she said.

---

Kelly Marie Tran on The Wedding Banquet and embracing her identity

Kelly Marie Tran (Image via YouTube/Bleecker Street)

In the interview, Tran mentioned that she had been receiving backlash from toxic Star Wars fans after she joined the franchise as Rose Tico in the movie Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

The Wedding Banquet was one of the movies that helped her overcome her fear and accept her identity.

“This past year, I did four movies, and they were all Asian stories with Asian writer-directors, and a few of those were also queer writer-directors. I remember looking back and thinking, ‘Wow! How crazy is it the thing that I was persecuted for, I now get to make art about?'” she said.

The storyline closely mirrored the Vietnamese American actor's personal history, a feat that not all her projects had achieved. Tran was empowered by her time making the film, and came out as queer publicly. She didn't want to hide the part of herself that was celebrated in the movie.

"(The) entire experience (of filming) was about celebrating queerness and celebrating chosen family and celebrating queer joy, which I didn’t know I needed so badly at that point in my life," she added.

Tran shared that the environment that the movie set created was a completely new experience for her. The main characters in the movie were queer and most of the people working on set were also queer which made her feel comfortable in sharing her identity. She said that she was also able to relate to her character's complicated coming-out experience.

“It’s such an authentic representation of what it is to be an Asian child and to have gotten into a fight, and then to not have addressed it fully with your parent afterwards,” she noted.

Tran said that the film touches on a variety of family dynamics that queer Asian people face and represents it authentically. She added that she is excited for her upcoming projects and will continue to stretch herself and pursue roles that inspire her.

---

The Wedding Banquet: Cast and crew

The film stars Han Gi-Chan as Min, Kelly Marie Tran as Angela, Lily Gladstone as Lee, and Bowen Yang as Chris. The full list of cast who appear in the movie is as follows:

• Bowen Yang as Chris
• Lily Gladstone as Lee
• Kelly Marie Tran as Angela
• Han Gi-Chan as Min
• Joan Chen as May Chen
• Youn Yuh-jung as Ja-Young
• Bobo Le as Kendall
• Camille Atebe as Monica
• Jeffrey Liang as Lady Shu Mai
• Emma Yi as Lawyer Sun
• Françoise Yip as Susan
• Marlee Walchuk as Marge
• Jeremy Hoffman as Marshall
• Sherine Menes as Kal / Intern
• Nick Preston as Stanley

---

The Wedding Banquet is set to be released on April 18, 2025.