Jenny Han, who wrote the book “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” said in a New York Times column on Friday that nearly every producer she met with to adapt it into a film wanted to cast an actress not Asian-American in the lead role. She choose the only one who didn’t.
“One producer said to me, as long as the actress captures the spirit of the character, age and race don’t matter,” Han wrote in her piece. “I said, well, her spirit is Asian-American. That was the end of that.
“I ended up deciding to work with the only production company that agreed the main character would be played by an Asian actress.