With Hysterical now available to stream exclusively on FX on Hulu, Margaret Cho took the time to join us for a brand new episode of Collider Ladies Night to discuss why it was important for her to be part of a documentary that put the spotlight on the women making a huge impact on the comedy scene. But as always, Ladies Night also takes the time to retrace one’s steps to their latest accomplishment and for Cho that meant digging into her early days as a comedy duo with Sam Rockwell, making Face/Off with John Woo, and discussing her experience working alongside Joel Edgerton and Will Smith on the big-budget Netflix hit, Bright.
The story takes place in Los Angeles where magic is real and humans co-exist with other races, including orcs. Smith leads as Daryl Ward, a human LAPD officer who’s forced to partner with the country’s very first orc officer, Nick Jakoby (Edgerton). With Orcs relegated to the oppressed underclass, Jakoby doesn’t receive a warm welcome from the other officers, and when Jakoby and Ward come into possession of a rare magical artifact, it puts an even bigger target on Jakoby’s back.
Cho steps in as an LAPD sergeant who finds herself in the middle of a tense disagreement over what to do with this artifact, and Jakoby in the process. Having had the experience of making a 90s action movie loaded with real explosions like Face/Off, what was it like making the shift to a more CG-heavy film like Bright? Here’s how Cho put it:
“Bright had a lot of effects and a lot of creatures. It was a real weird thing because Bright was actually a combination of a sci-fi fantasy film and kind of a hard hitting crime drama about Los Angeles, so you had a lot of elements that were really interesting. And then, all of the orcs in Bright had some CGI added later, so you had the base costume, which they really looked like gorgonzola. They really looked just like blue cheese and then after they added the CGI, they looked really different.”
Even though the movie’s a little over three years old now, Cho still views Edgerton as orc through and through. Here’s why:
“It really kind of formed my opinion of Joel Edgerton because I can’t see him as anything but an orc because I never saw him as anything but an orc. He was orc the entire time. I never saw him out of makeup, so I think that Joel Edgerton is actually an orc. It’s hard for me to think of him [as] his real self.”
Cho also took a moment to highlight the political climate while making the movie, something that contributed to making Bright an especially memorable time:
“I remember that whole experience. Will Smith and I were getting our makeup done when Hillary Clinton was giving her concession speech and we were just like, we were so upset. It was [a] very intensely traumatic time because when Hillary Clinton had lost the election, it was like, ‘How are we gonna do this with Donald Trump?’ And, how did this happen? So that was also culturally what was going on in the air around that film.”
As for Smith, Cho only had the best to say about the way he carried himself and his positive influence on the culture on set:
“Will Smith is exactly how you think he’s gonna be. He’s fun, he’s friendly, he’s sweet, he’s hilarious. He’s really easy to get along with on set. He just kind of really sort of democratizes the process of moviemaking. There’s no hierarchy with Will Smith. Everybody’s an equal part of the system.”
If you’d like to hear more from Cho on her journey through the entertainment industry from her earliest TV gigs to becoming an Emmy nominee, you can catch our full Collider Ladies Night conversation at the top of this article!