Nearly 20 years after his directorial debut, Jon M. Chu is reflecting on the imposter syndrome he’s faced in his career.
The Wicked director recently admitted that he once didn’t think he “deserved to be in Hollywood” during a Canva Create panel last month at SoFi Stadium, explaining that he frequently questions, “Why am I the person to tell the story?”
“When you said my list of movies, it lit up and you said Crazy Rich Asians,” he said, according to People. “That was a big point in my life. I didn’t think I deserved to be in Hollywood. I was discovered and I got very lucky. And when you win the lottery, you think you actually don’t know how you got there. So you actually can’t win the lottery again.”
Chu added, “I had to learn how to win in a different way or how to tell my story. … As I go through my career, that moment, choosing to do something that only I could tell was a scary … I was like, ‘No one’s going to see this movie.’ I actually told my team, I was like, ‘I’m going to make a movie. I’m going to take five years and I’m not going to make you any money.’ Luckily they were fine with it.”
With his team’s support, Chu “knew that audience, whether you were Asian or not, would fall in love with the things that I fall in love with my family, the meals that we eat, the conversations we had, we could make fun of ourselves and how we are, and we had all walks of life in there.”
Following his work on Wicked (2024) and Wicked: For Good (2025), Chu is set to direct multiple upcoming titles, including the Hot Wheels movie for Mattel, Warner Bros and Bad Robot, and an adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go! with co-director Jill Culton.
