Leading up to the release of The American Society of Magical Negroes, Dorkaholics was invited to interview An-Li Bogan who plays Lizzie in the film.
Neil Bui: When your character first appears in the film inside the coffee shop, I thought, this is such a great meet cute scene. Just because of the banter, the dialog was just so good. What did it take for it to get to that point? How many takes? How did you develop that chemistry with Justice?
An-Li Bogan: Oh, that scene in particular. I don’t know this for sure, but I feel like our director, Kobi, was very aware that it was only my second day on set. And the first day on set was filmed in a car, and it was kind of a more intimate setting. I don’t know if that was intentional for my first day, but it really kind of warmed me up a little bit. The coffee shop scene was the first scene where there were background actors. There was a whole crew, and it was kind of intimidating for me. And I think Kobi was really aware of that. We got a lot of time and different takes, we got to improv, we got to say it in our own words. So Kobi really set the conditions for that to be a relaxed and playful interaction.
Neil Bui: Has there been a film or series in the past that you watched that has resonated with you the same way that The American Society of Magical Negroes did?
An-Li Bogan: I don’t know. I feel like because I was in it, watching this film and being a part of it, it’s like a pretty unique experience because I had some authorship over parts of it. Everything Everywhere All At Once came out while I was shooting this, and I just sobs. Because of the concept, but also because maybe this is my generation, I don’t know, but every time I see like a whole cast of Asian people, no matter what they’re doing, and it could be really a bad project, but it kind of makes me emotional because, when I was growing up, that wasn’t the reality. So maybe that film, and the fact that Michelle Yeoh won the Oscar and, all about that. I don’t know if it resonated with me the same way that this film does, but it resonated with me.
Catch The American Society of Magical Negroes in theaters starting March 15th.
