Many queer folks have to find each other because family is not accepting of who they are

THE CAST AND DIRECTOR OF THE WEDDING BANQUET TELL ELLA WALKER ABOUT THEIR REIMAGINING OF ANG LEE'S HIT NINETIES ROMANTIC COMEDY

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FAMILY doesn’t just mean the nuclear mum, dad and 2.4 children for many people.

Increasingly, the term has been expanded to include those you've actively chosen to have in your life, especially when your birth family rejects who you are.

“You have to find community, you have to rely on each other,” says Oscar-nominated actress Lily Gladstone (Killers Of The Flower Moon). Lily plays Lee in The Wedding Banquet, a reimagining of Ang Lee’s 1993 film of the same name, which has, at its heart, a queer chosen family. “So many queer folks have to find each other because family and community is not accepting of who they are.”

Directed by Andrew Ahn (Fire Island, Driveways), the comedy of errors follows two couples: Angela and her partner Lee, who have run out of cash for a third attempt at IVF, and Min, a scion of a wealthy South Korean family in need of a green card. When Min’s partner Chris - played by Emmy-nominated comedian and actor Bowen Yang, 34, (Wicked, Fire Island) - rejects his marriage proposal, jeopardising Min’s right to stay in the US, Min proposes to Angela (played by Star Wars and Raya actor Kelly Marie Tran, 36) instead, offering to pay for her and Lee's IVF treatment as a trade for legal status.

Andrew notes that it was important to reimagine the 1993 movie, rather than totally remake it: “It was less about cutting anything away from the original, and more about building upon its legacy, and thinking about how the queer community has changed since 1993, letting these characters organically get into their own hi-jinks and drama.”