Lee Isaac Chung

Having parents who are chicken sexers - I had trouble explaining that to kids at school!

— Lee Isaac Chung

For a struggling filmmaker running low on ideas, public domain is all we have for adapting books.

— Lee Isaac Chung

We grew up in rural Arkansas without any Koreans close by, and when I go to Korea feel out of place.

— Lee Isaac Chung

The attention and all the interviews and all that, it has been wild and something that I'm not used to.

— Lee Isaac Chung

I remember when I told my parents that I wanted to be a filmmaker, and no longer was I planning to be…

— Lee Isaac Chung

There's a constant level of risk in farming that so few movies let you feel. I wanted to show some of that,…

— Lee Isaac Chung

I was so excited when 'Parasite' won the Oscar last year, and part of that was the shared Korean heritage and also…

— Lee Isaac Chung

There are a lot of Korean films that will show marital strife, but I'm not sure I've seen so many that will…

— Lee Isaac Chung

I thought I would go into philosophy and political science.

— Lee Isaac Chung

I think one of the things that I had to establish for myself quite early on was the rule that this is…

— Lee Isaac Chung

Any time there is a film in a 'foreign language,' in Spanish or Korean or whatever language, it's usually not an American…

— Lee Isaac Chung

I know, it's disturbing that gentle looking people have such violence, but I believe we all have a penchant for violence in…

— Lee Isaac Chung

My father came to America believing in the romantic dream of what he saw in films like 'Big Country' and 'Giant' -…

— Lee Isaac Chung

There's a lot of regret that I have about not showing my proper gratitude to my grandmother.

— Lee Isaac Chung

I didn't grow up breathing cinema. I had to figure it all out in public.

— Lee Isaac Chung

Even my parents felt like, 'My son finally made it working with Youn Yuh-jung.'

— Lee Isaac Chung

I was a little bit anti-industry, anti-Hollywood.

— Lee Isaac Chung

'Minari' was only eligible for the best foreign language film category due to the HFPA rules on language, so the film was…

— Lee Isaac Chung

My mom grew up without a father because he died in the Korean War. And my grandmother, her life was completely upended…

— Lee Isaac Chung

Growing up where I was, there were no Asians, no minorities, and there was always something to remind me of what I'm…

— Lee Isaac Chung

I had my daughter in 2013, we moved to L.A. and there's just lots of things that were happening that were feeding…

— Lee Isaac Chung

Because growing up as an Asian-American and growing up as someone who is not white, oftentimes in this country you can feel…

— Lee Isaac Chung

It's always about agency - that's the goal, always, to give agency to people. I think that's always got to be the…

— Lee Isaac Chung

I modeled my work after contemporary masters of art house cinema but felt my voice was missing.

— Lee Isaac Chung

I was an art house guy, making little, not-much-happening films.

— Lee Isaac Chung