I have to believe that I’m in this position for some reason and whatever that reason is, I hope that my younger me is proud of me now. I think about that every time I see a young queer Asian person.
KELLY MARIE TRAN
April 2025
Photographed by Nico Reano for Them
I had these ideas about what I could and could not do because I was a woman, because I was Asian, because I grew up as the child of immigrants. It took me so long to even open my mind to the idea that I could pursue acting because I came from a family that did not believe that was for me or for us. That's a very common experience in the Asian American diaspora, that art is for a very specific type of person, and we were never given space there. The work of reexamining those false narratives and how damaging they can be is the only way that I've gotten myself to where I am today, and I hope that future generations don't have to do all that work because it's exhausting, expensive, and so many people don't have the privilege of therapy or support groups. The hope is to continue to make art about these different identities and these experiences, and hopefully down the line, young people will not have to do as much work to recognize their self-worth despite society telling them otherwise.
KELLY MARIE TRAN
Photographed by Henry Wu for Timid Magazine, May 2025
JIMMY KIMMEL: Were you a Disney nut or something?
KELLY MARIE TRAN: HUGE. I loved, like, all the animated movies.
JK: So this must be a dream come true for you to be the lead in a Disney film.
KMT: Yeah, yeah, it’s a big deal.
JK: Are you a Disney princess now? Is that—
KMT: I am technically a Disney princess, yeah!
★ Kelly Marie Tran went from being a lifelong Disney fan to being a Disney Princess ★
Kelly Marie Tran, Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada, Qui Nguyen, Adele Lim and Osnat Shurer speak to Mashable Southeast Asia’s Danial Martinus on Raya and the Last Dragon.
Danial: I think one of the biggest questions on everyone’s mind is, how does it feel to be Disney’s first-ever badass Southeast Asian warrior princess?
Kelly: Oh my gosh, thank you for putting it that way. Yeah, she is badass! [laughs] It feels incredible. I do not take it lightly that we are making a movie that’s sort of breaking barriers. And I hope that when people see this movie, they’re able to see themselves reflected in a way that they may not have been able to see before. It means the world to me and I am so grateful to be part of this magical, miraculous experience.
Danial: Even though the film is set in Kumandra, which as we all know is a fictional Southeast Asian land, I can’t help but feel a sense of familiarity with it. Why look to Southeast Asia in the first place, and why now?
Don: So the decision to really look into the varied cultures of Southeast Asia as inspiration for our film happened, you know, about five or six years ago, well before we came in on the film. I think a lot of it was about, you know, in terms of just cinema, it’s a very underrepresented place of the world. And not only that, but there were, you know, trips taken by some of the filmmakers and filmmaking teams early on and just fell in love with the region.
Qui: It’s also just a great area in the world, you know. Not just the architecture, and the foods and things. Like when you’re doing a big action adventure movie, one of the most fun things to highlight is obviously the martial arts from the region. You know, a Disney movie that has a, you know, warrior princess as its lead doing pencak silat and muay thai and arnis and traditional Vietnamese wrestling, that’s a very special thing that you just don’t see every day. And that was something that was very exciting to put on screen.
Carlos: Even though the story went through a lot of transformations, from the very beginning, at its core, it was about people from different backgrounds coming together and learning how to trust one another, learning how to work with each other. So we knew that Kumandra needed to show great diversity, great richness and an indifference in all these cultures within the world. Because even though there is very distinct sort of like personalities and flavors and essences to each of these countries, they sort of like exist in this little microcosm. For all of these reasons, it was really sort of like the very, very perfect place to draw these inspirations from.
Danial: I heard that everyone traveled through Southeast Asia to do some research and garner inspiration. What was that like? Which countries did you travel to and which one was your favorite? Like, which one did you enjoy the most?
Adele and Osnat: [laughs]
Adele: Osnat, the correct answer is Malaysia!
Osnat: Malaysia! I know, I know. We learned so much in each place, it was different. The beauty was everywhere. The gorgeous food was everywhere. It was just a question of connecting with people.
Danial: What influenced the idea to make trust a key element or a kind of backbone to the story?
Osnat: These movies are incredibly personal. So we spent a lot of time really thinking about what it is we wanted to say and we knew that what we were all drawn to talking about is how in a divided world, in a divisive world, we all need to come together for the greater good. But it wasn’t till later that we found the focus point of what that is. When Don and Qui and Carlos joined us, we honed in on trust. We realized that for us, the more we thought about it, the key to being willing to work together, despite our differences or even because of our differences, is trust.
Danial: Which scene was your favorite to write?
Adele: Oh my gosh. Like, it’s so funny. I feel like we’ve written this movie about eight times over because that’s how many times you put it up. But I do think my favorite scenes are with young Raya and her father. For a lot of us, you know, the dreams of our parents become our dreams when we are young, and then as we grow up, especially when we’re in an imperfect world, a world that’s broken, we can get disillusioned, we can get very bitter. And we, you know, hopefully get back to the point where we can rediscover those dreams and feel like this is something worth fighting for. And you’re sort of carrying on that, you know, that tradition, that heritage that we have. So that was very special for me.
Danial: Being of Southeast Asian descent yourself, how important would you say this project was for you? Both in a professional and personal capacity?
Qui: Well, on a professional capacity, obviously it’s huge. Like, there’s nothing bigger than making a Disney movie, right? You know, when you make a Disney film, you know it’s going to impact, you know, pop culture globally. But then, personally, like, my kids don’t often get to see themselves on screen ever. They never get to be the hero. They’ll always have Raya as a hero that they can look towards and go, “Hey, she had agency to be the lead character.” And that is something that, I think, you know, as a person who grew up in America, I didn’t get to see a lot of that. And to be able to know that my kids will now never have to feel that, that is a very major thing for me, to know that they now have this forever is a real, real dream come true.
Danial: In a sense, it’s kind of historical, because people further down the line that watch the film, they’ll associate your name with the first ever Southeast Asian princess, right?
Kelly: [laughs]
Danial: So with that in mind, like, what of pressure did you feel when you were cast?
Kelly: I felt responsibility, obviously. Because anytime you’re doing something that feels like it’s never happened before, you feel that sense of both honor and responsibility. That being said, I hope that this is the first of many times that we will see stories about this part of the world.
Danial: If you could only pick one, what important takeaway do you want people to learn from Raya and the Last Dragon?
Osnat: Our chance to make this world a better place than we found it, when we came in to it, is to come together with our differences, embracing our differences and actually trust each other. And it’s not easy. And it happens. You have to try again and again and again. And take steps that are very scary and make you feel vulnerable, but it’s worth it because when we come together, we can work magic.
Danial: And which would you say is the most important scene in the film?
Kelly: I think the most important scene is the scene where Raya takes the first step. I think that it’s so important to see characters who in the beginning of the movie don’t trust each other and are from different parts of this land, and to see them at the end not only trust each other, but to be able to put away any sort of instincts about self-preservation in order to work towards the idea of a world that’s better than the one they’re living in. I think that is a message that I hope people take away with them and the message that I want to take away from this experience.
