“I made Netflix spend all this money on this movie just so that, as a 37-year-old mother of two, I could kiss Daniel Dae Kim and Keanu Reeves,” Ali Wong cracked to Variety at the premiere for her upcoming romantic comedy “Always Be My Maybe.” Her co-star and the third piece to this romantic quadrangle, Randall Park commended her, saying “She’s a genius.” Wong and Park co-wrote and star in “Always Be My Maybe,” playing Sasha and Marcus, childhood friends who hook up in their teens, but have a falling out and lose touch for 15 years. Sasha goes on to become a successful chef in Los Angeles and is engaged to restauranteur Brandon Choi (Daniel Dae Kim), while Marcus is a struggling musician living at home with his dad.
The two reconnect when Sasha returns home to San Francisco to open a new restaurant, and it’s not long before sparks fly again until a mysterious man played by Keanu Reeves gets in the way. CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix “What a genius writer! She was like, I’m going to write this for me, Randall, Daniel Dae Kim and Keanu Reeves,” the film’s director, Nahnatchka Khan, echoed. “He was the sort of ideal scenario,” Khan said, explaining how they landed Reeves. “You’re like, ‘Oh, this is probably never going to happen, but here it is.’ And then he got sent the script and he responded. And we sat down with him and he had some great thoughts on the character. So, we revised it, sent it back to him. He was like, ‘Absolutely!’” She continued: “We got him in this little window — I think he was wrapping ‘John Wick’ in New York and then was about to go to Morocco or something. So, we got him for this short time. The fact that he was willing to do it, when he could have gotten to sleep for five days, is amazing.” Mariah Carey also voiced her approval – much to super-fan Wong’s excitement.
Carey gave the film a shout out via Twitter, sharing the movie’s trailer and acknowledging the fact that the film’s title is a play on her 1995 hit “Always Be My Baby.” “They didn’t even have to pitch it because I just wanted to be a part of it because I’m a fan of theirs. And I love the idea of two Asian-American leads in a rom-com and I wanted to do comedy, so it was a good fit,” Kim explained, adding that he was most excited to play a jerk. Rounding out the cast with funny ladies like Michelle Buteau and Casey Wilson proved to be just as easy. “I basically begged and begged to be part of it and I’m not ashamed to admit that. I just did the table read and I love the script so much and obviously Randall and Ali are so wonderful,” Wilson cooed. “It’s just a special film that’s actually, like, genuinely hard funny, but then I was crying at
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