Quotes from Lee Isaac Chung

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

Part of the fabric of America is that we have people from different countries who've come here and they are American, and yet they embrace their home ancestral culture. And this is their new home. And that's part of what makes this country unique in the history of human beings on this earth.

If you're in the rural South, you don't get Korean TV, unless you can find a Korean grocery guy who has been taping Korean programs and then offering them.

My daughter was five when I was writing 'Minari,' very much close to the age of David. And I was about to turn 40, which was the age my dad was when he decided he was going to start this farm in Arkansas.

I remember my roommate was watching 'Seven Samurai,' and I just couldn't fathom why anybody would watch it.

I had my daughter in 2013, we moved to L.A. and there's just lots of things that were happening that were feeding into the desire to tell a story that's more personal and to talk about what it's like to be a father.

But I kind of reframed my thinking, where I don't feel like filmmaking is what defines me anymore. Like, I feel like I'm much more defined by my family and other things in life that, that I feel are much deeper to me.

I do care what my daughter thinks and what the future generation of whoever is down the line will think.

Early on... I did notice that a lot of people had the tendency to do their own story starting out. I felt like I was never interested in that, and I wanted to tell stories of people who are very different.

Among Korean immigrants the majority tends to be Christian, because that was the way they immigrated to America - through the support network of churches. I grew up with faith being an important fabric of my life. That comes with my life in the South - it was just a given that you believe.

I just want to say that 'Minari' is about a family. It's a family trying to learn how to speak a language of its own. It goes deeper than any American language and any foreign language.

These days I love watching Billy Wilder. I'm not saying the arthouse stuff is self-serious, but I needed to get out of my head a little bit and not treat films so seriously.

I thought about quitting filmmaking, just because it was becoming so difficult for me.

I just feel like the garden is a place where you can explore humanity quite deeply.

When I was thinking of giving up, I was very dissatisfied with the idea that the films that I've made are the ones my daughter might see in the future and would represent what was very personal to me.

I began my filmmaking career by shooting a feature length documentary in China in 2004, the year I graduated from film school.

I just hope that in some ways, 'Minari' can pave the way for other filmmakers, other actors, other projects that maybe don't fit within traditional boxes - if it helps those films get made in the future, I'd be so thrilled.

There's a constant level of risk in farming that so few movies let you feel. I wanted to show some of that, but also, by contrast, reflect on how nature so often offers grace.

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

I remember when I told my parents that I wanted to be a filmmaker, and no longer was I planning to be a doctor, one of the first things my mom said to my dad was: 'This is your fault. You watched too many movies.'

Growing up where I was, there were no Asians, no minorities, and there was always something to remind me of what I'm not. And when I go to Korea it's the same thing. I'm constantly reminded that I'm not Korean.

Because growing up as an Asian-American and growing up as someone who is not white, oftentimes in this country you can feel as though you're a foreigner, or you're reminded of being a foreigner, even though you're not. Even though inside, internally, you feel completely American.

Many filmmakers start off with an autobiographical film from childhood, and that's kind of what I was thinking I would do, but other projects would just present themselves naturally in the beginning.

Insecurities and missteps can plague writers and artists who come from rural places. We worry that our provincial life experiences won't gain the approval of urban curators, so we assimilate ourselves to other, more sophisticated voices.