"Speak to the process, not the product"
Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu has shared her best career advice.
In a CNBC interview Constance Wu shared the best career advice she ever received.
Wu has achieved incredible success with hit TV show Fresh Off The Boat and all Asian cast Crazy Rich Asians, which became the top grossing romantic comedy in ten years.
For Wu, the best advice she ever received in regards to her career was to “speak to the process, not the product.”
“Don’t worry about booking jobs, don’t worry about these ends goals,” the 36-year-old said. “Just learn things from the journey. That’s the best part of it.”
However, Wu admitted that it wasn’t all plain sailing for her. “There was a time in my life when I would equate my personal value with employment.”
Wu always remained loyal to fulfilling other people’s expectations. “When I auditioned for a director, I would make an assumption about what he or she wanted in the character and then I would try to fulfill what I imagined he or she wanted,” she said.
She then realised that focusing on portraying the character in her own way was important. “That way, if anything, you control your artistic integrity,” she said. “Because what you imagine that director might have wanted might not be it at all.
“The one thing that you can control is your process and putting out work that is to your standards, even if it might not be to somebody else’s,” she continued. “That way you draw the people to you who have the same sort of values as you.”
“The one thing that you can control is your process and putting out work that is to your standards.”
“Success is liking what you do and how you do it,” she said. “I think the second part of it is very important, because that’s about your integrity. It doesn’t matter if you like what you do if you have to sacrifice any of your integrity.”
In related news, it was recently revealed that Wu almost did not take the Crazy Rich Asians role at all.