Greta Lee wasn't necessarily lacking work prior to starring in Past Lives — she's enjoyed supporting turns in The Morning Show and Russian Doll since 2019 — but she admitted to Elle this week that she had become resigned to playing the best friend characters rather than the leading lady.
"Playing Nora in Past Lives is the honour of a lifetime for me. Before that, I had accepted that either it wasn't going to come at all, or if it was going to come, it was going to come at the end of my career, if I was lucky," she recalled. "As an actor, there's always the question, especially for someone like me: Will I ever get more opportunities? You don't want to address the extreme discrepancy of opportunities for people of colour."
"It would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that I have this burning rage on behalf of myself and other actresses like me who do not want to wait for roles like this," she continued. "I do not want other people —other women, other women of colour, other Asian-American actresses — to have to sit there and wait. There has to be a better way."
Now, her heart-wrenching breakthrough performance in Past Lives has inspired a galactic shift in her mindset. "I'm totally fucked. I'm not willing to accept my previous reality," she said.
Moving forward, she warned that moviegoers will have no choice but to get used to seeing her on the big screen.
"I want to work until I'm 100 years old," she said. "I want to outlive everyone to make up for all that lost time — all those years of sitting and just watching people, incredible people who I love, the people who had access to all the things, all the opportunities that I didn't."
To Lee's credit, she's well on her way already, with a main role in Tron: Ares alongside Jared Leto, Cameron Monaghan and Evan Peters slated for 2025.
"Playing Nora in Past Lives is the honour of a lifetime for me. Before that, I had accepted that either it wasn't going to come at all, or if it was going to come, it was going to come at the end of my career, if I was lucky," she recalled. "As an actor, there's always the question, especially for someone like me: Will I ever get more opportunities? You don't want to address the extreme discrepancy of opportunities for people of colour."
"It would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that I have this burning rage on behalf of myself and other actresses like me who do not want to wait for roles like this," she continued. "I do not want other people —other women, other women of colour, other Asian-American actresses — to have to sit there and wait. There has to be a better way."
Now, her heart-wrenching breakthrough performance in Past Lives has inspired a galactic shift in her mindset. "I'm totally fucked. I'm not willing to accept my previous reality," she said.
Moving forward, she warned that moviegoers will have no choice but to get used to seeing her on the big screen.
"I want to work until I'm 100 years old," she said. "I want to outlive everyone to make up for all that lost time — all those years of sitting and just watching people, incredible people who I love, the people who had access to all the things, all the opportunities that I didn't."
To Lee's credit, she's well on her way already, with a main role in Tron: Ares alongside Jared Leto, Cameron Monaghan and Evan Peters slated for 2025.
