Jon M. Chu has directed two of the most commercially successful musicals in Hollywood history. He has a Critics’ Choice Award for Best Director on his shelf. His slate of upcoming projects runs well into the next decade. Yet for years, the 46-year-old filmmaker carried a quiet conviction that he had no right to any of it.
Speaking last month at a Canva Create panel titled “Building Worlds: From Script to Spectacle” at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, Chu admitted that he once didn’t think he “deserved to be in Hollywood,” adding that he routinely asks himself, “Why am I the person to tell the story?”
The confession surfaced when an interviewer ran through his filmography. Chu described how hearing Crazy Rich Asians named aloud triggered a flood of emotion: “That was a big point in my life. I didn’t think I deserved to be in Hollywood. I was discovered and I got very lucky. And when you win the lottery, you think you actually don’t know how you got there. So you actually can’t win the lottery again.”
That sense of illegitimacy, he explained, ran deeper than routine nerves. Chu described the early-career trap of measuring yourself against filmmakers who inspired you: “You are so conscious of doing it because you’re not like the greats, but the greats are the ones that inspired you. You want to be like that so badly you don’t have quite the language or the tools or the ability of the craftsmanship yet.”
The decision to make Crazy Rich Asians in 2018 forced him off that treadmill. He had to stop chasing a model of success he didn’t fully understand and find one rooted in his own experience. He told his team bluntly: “I’m going to make a movie. I’m going to take five years and I’m not going to make you any money.” They backed him anyway. The film went on to earn $239 million worldwide against a $30 million budget, and became the first major-studio Hollywood production in 25 years to feature a predominantly Asian cast.
Following its success, Chu directed In the Heights and then the two-part Wicked adaptation, with the first installment earning a Best Picture nomination at the 2025 Oscars. For his direction of Wicked, he won the National Board of Review Award for Best Director and the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Director.
The career arc from self-described lottery winner to awards frontrunner has done little to quiet his creative anxiety — he describes his process as beginning with a gut reaction to material, and he still filters every project through the same question of personal connection. He said the emotional spark always comes first: “And it either sparks me or not. Because without that, I can’t tell you what colors. I can’t tell you what we should build for, and it doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Chu has signed a multi-year deal with Paramount Skydance and has several major projects ahead, including a Britney Spears biopic, a live-action Hot Wheels film, and an animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, slated for 2028 — his first venture into animation.
