It’s happening, you guys. In just about a week, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You will officially hit Netflix, and we’ll finally get to see Lara Jean, Peter, and John Ambrose’s love triangle play out on screen. Before that happens, though, star Lana Condor opened up to EW about the importance of Asian American representation in film, and which scene from the sequel made the biggest impact on her personally.
“There’s a scene where Lara Jean is in this beautiful, almost Cinderella gown and she walks down the stairs to John Ambrose,” Condor, who is a Vietnamese-American actor playing a Korean-American character, told the outlet. “I was waiting on top of the stairs right before we started rolling and it hit me all at once how special that moment was because we don’t get Cinderella moments a lot.”
NetflixCondor then explained that this type of representation in movies would’ve been life-changing for her as a kid. “As a young girl, I never got to see a Cinderella moment where the girl looked like me,” she continued. “This is the most important part of the story for me is being able to represent our community. It’s creating a space for Asian Americans to tell their story and have a moment.”
She’s right. The To All The Boys films — as well as the book trilogy — are certainly making space for Asian Americans in popular media. “The first book came out in 2014 and was the first young adult book to have an Asian person on the cover on the New York Times Bestseller List,” author Jenny Han said. And as EW pointed out, the first film was praised for being one of the few rom-coms with an Asian American female lead.
The outlet also drew attention to the fact that, in many ways, Condor became the role model she always needed, which became especially clear when young Asian American women decided to dress up as Lara Jean for Halloween after the first movie’s release. “There’s a little something in the first book about how Lara Jean never has anything to dress up as for Halloween, and that’s something from my life,” Han said. “So it’s cool to see all these young Asian American women own the moment.”
To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You will hit Netflix on Wednesday, February 12.
