Screenwriter Adele Lim is making waves in the industry in the best possible ways. Not only is she delivering excellent feature films, but she’s also striving to ensure better representation across the board - in front of the lens and behind it as well. Back in 2019, Lim opted to depart the sequel to the hugely successful Crazy Rich Asians over a pay disparity. According to THR, Lim’s co-writer, Peter Chiarelli, was set to receive a “significantly higher fee” for his work on the film.

Raya and the Last Dragon
Image via Disney

On the one hand, it must be scary to walk away from such a big gig in a mighty challenging industry, but Lim standing her ground sends a very loud message that will hopefully contribute to sparking more urgency in the push for equality in Hollywood - and beyond. With Lim currently celebrating the release of her new movie, Disney Animation’s Raya and the Last Dragon, I got the opportunity to chat with her about that film and to discuss the takeaways from her experience with the Crazy Rich Asians sequel. Here’s what she said:

“With what Crazy Rich is, it’s similar to Raya. It has done so much for Asian representation and you want to be able to have people behind the scenes as well telling those stories. It all comes down to a saying we have for underrepresented communities, that no story’s about us without us. And so I think, to Disney’s great credit, it’s not just me and my co-writer Qui Nguyen, but we had so many people from Southeast Asia or [who] had Southeast Asian cultural roots already in the Disney family with our story department, visual development, in animation. We’re able to give that layer of authenticity and dedication and love to the project, and so really that’s what you love to see and hopefully the whole industry is striving towards a more diverse and accurate reflection of the world we live in today with faces in front of and behind the screen.”

raya-and-the-last-dragon-image
Image via Disney

And wait until you see how they apply that push for diversity in Raya and the Last Dragon, which is just bursting at the seams with stunning cultural representation and also boasting a wildly charming lead ensemble filled with unique individuals. In addition to our title characters Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) and Sisu the last dragon (Awkwafina), there’s also Boun (Izaac Wang), a whip-smart kid who runs a boat restaurant, Tong (Benedict Wong), a formidable woodsman, and Noi (Thalia Tran), a toddler who operates as a con artist along with her team of Ongis. I truly couldn’t imagine a better assortment of characters to band together to save the land of Kumandra, but it turns out, it did take the filmmakers a little workshopping to settle on their final line-up. As producer Osnat Shurer pointed out, some of the characters went through significant changes. Here’s what she told us about how Noi and Tong evolved:

“Young Baby Noi, she started off as - actually Tong was a grandmother, has the grandchild and they were together. She was a warrior baby. She already had that tough thing that we love so much about her, and we realized as we looked at it that, at that point, we had the Ongis, the monkey kind of characters, were the main characters from Talon and we wanted a human character there and came up with the idea of how she works with them.”

If you’d like to hear more from Lim and Shurer about their experience working on Raya and the Last Dragon, the pivots Lim had to make going from live-action writing to writing for animation, what Shurer learned from Moana that she applied to Raya and more, check out our full conversation at the top of this article! The movie is now available to watch on Disney+.

RELATED: ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ Review: Disney Delivers a Solid Action Movie

Raya and the Last Dragon
Image via Disney

Adele Lim and Osnat Shurer:

  • The opportunity to write for animation came out of the blue for Lim.
  • The most challenging pivot to make when going from writing for live-action to writing for animation.
  • Shurer discusses lessons learned from making Moana that she applied to Raya.
  • Lim highlights something they weren’t certain would work, but wound up panning out well.
  • Shurer highlights something she wasn’t sure they’d get away with at all.
  • How Raya’s group of heroes evolved.
  • Lim addresses her decision to depart Crazy Rich Asians 2.

KEEP READING: Here’s Everything New to Disney+ in March 2021