‘The Wedding Banquet’ Remake Inspired Kelly Marie Tran to Come Out as Queer

Kelly Marie Tran‘s upcoming role in a remake of Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet has given her the courage to publicly come out as queer for the first time. The Star Wars actress will join other LGBTQ+ icons such as Bowen Yang and Lily Gladstone in queer filmmaker Andrew Ahn’s adaptation of the 1993 rom-com, which was added to the Library of Congress just last year for its cultural significance and positive portrayal of LGBTQ+ individuals.

Speaking to Vanity Fair about her involvement in the film, Tran said that after spending time in an environment with so many other queer individuals, she felt ready to share her identity for the first time. “I haven’t said this publicly yet, but I’m a queer person,” stated Tran, adding that her work on Ahn’s movie felt very close to home. “The thing that really excited me about it was I got to play a person that I felt like I knew. I don’t feel like I’m acting at all in this movie.” She also attributed her newfound confidence to the acceptance and support of her other queer coworkers:

Lee’s original film follows a bisexual Taiwanese man, Gao Wai-Tung who enters a lavender marriage with a Chinese immigrant woman in order to earn her green card and placate his traditional parents. Unfortunately, the plan becomes far more complicated when Wai-Tung’s parents become involved in planning his wedding banquet, forcing him to conceal the existence of his gay partner. However, Ahn’s adaptation involves gender-swapping the principal roles, with Tran starring as Angela, a woman trying for a baby through IVF with her partner, Lee (Lily Gladstone). Living with them are their close friends Chris (Bowan Yang) and his partner Min (Han Gi-Chan). When Min finds himself pressured to return to Korea and take over the family business, he plans a fake wedding with Angela to secure a green card, raise funds for her IVF treatment, and, of course, placate his traditional parents.

Kelly Marie Tran is On Her Way to Becoming a Queer Icon

Although Tran’s participation in Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet remake has been integral to her coming-out journey, it’s not the first time she has demonstrated her enthusiastic support for the LGBTQ+ community. After voicing Raya in Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon, Tran responded to fans’ speculations that her character might be queer by stating that she was more than open to the idea of a queer sequel. “I’d love to see a Disney warrior who — I don’t know, can I say this without getting in trouble? I don’t care — is openly in the LGBTQ community,” Tran shared. “I want to live in a world where every single type of person can see themselves in a movie like this.” Although no steps have been taken yet for a queer Raya sequel, Tran is nevertheless following through on her wish to create stories where all communities are represented.

Despite facing a truly unfathomable amount of backlash for her participation in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, it seems like Tran has at last found her own niche. While she did return briefly to the Star Wars universe as the voice of Darth Rose Tico in LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy, it’s unlikely that she’ll return in person to a galaxy far, far away. Instead, her upcoming projects include a Hulu Originals psychological thriller which is expected to premiere early next year, as well as the highly anticipated The Wedding Banquet remake, which is also headed for a 2025 release. In the meantime, the original 1993 Ang Lee version is currently streaming on Prime Video.

The Wedding Banquet