A Conversation with Yen Tan (ALL THAT WE LOVE)
In his latest film, All That We Love, director Yan Tan (1985) explores grief and love in a great variety of forms, using the initial death of a beloved pet as the catalyst for the narrative. Standup comedian Margaret Cho stars as Emma, who has just lost her longtime canine companion, Tanner, as the movie begins. As if wrestling with that tragedy isn’t bad enough, her lone child, daughter Maggie (Alice Lee, Come Find Me), plans to move to Australia. And then Emma’s estranged, and newly sober, ex-husband, Andy (Kenneth Choi, Hotel Artemis) shows up, adding to the already fraught mix of emotions. Tan handles the drama and light comedy (for there is that, too), with aplomb. I spoke with him at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, where his movie premiered (and where I reviewed it), and here is a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Hammer to Nail: I see, from looking at your long list of credits, that you have a background as a graphic designer, including poster design. I’m wondering if you can walk me through that background and art training.
Yan Ten: I would consider myself self-taught. I worked in advertising for a while. Design was something that was observed through many years of doing copywriting and working with other designers. I think it was just a learning-by-observing sort of thing. I think poster design, specifically for films, is something that initially started as a necessity, because we were working on films that were so small that there were never budgets for designing any sort of key art and stuff. So I started doing it for myself, but I also started doing it for other friends who needed key art. At that time, it was just people like David Lowery and Bryan Poyser, in 2007 and 2008. Then the films started getting into festivals. I think people started picking up on their art, and they were like, “Who’s designing our stuff?” So my name just started getting thrown around in that way. Then before I knew it, I became the go-to designer for festival films, art-house cinema, documentaries.
HtN: Do we have a poster yet for this film?
YT: There is one. It was used for the event yesterday; we had an after party for cast and crew. So I did design one, but it’s not enough for show-posts or anything like that.
HtN: I read the press notes and I understand, after reading them, that this film is born out of personal experience of sadness and tragedy.
YT: Right, yes.
HtN: As much as you are comfortable doing so in this interview, can you explain a little bit about that backstory?
YT: Of course. I think it was detailed pretty well in the press notes in a sense that I wrote All That We Love in 2013, started writing it coming off the experience of losing our first dog, Tanner. Then I started collaborating with Clay Liford on it. At that time, basically, it was just coming off this experience of losing a pet and feeling this very interesting sort of shift in the interpersonal relationships I was having with family and friends. I think over time it’s evolved and deepened in very subtle but interesting ways. I just saw the aftermath of losing a dog, and that propelled this idea of relationships improving and deepening, which was a very interesting observation that I wanted to capture in the story.
HtN: Is the dog, Tanner, in All That We Love, similar to the real-life Tanner that started it all for you?
Our Chris Reed and filmmaker Yen Tan
YT: Not physically, but I would say … dogs, they’re different and they have their own personalities, but I would say … Tanner was very calming in his presence. He was a Chinese Shar Pei. The Tanner in the movie is a mutt. So there’s that difference in breed.
HtN: How did you cast the dog?
YT: We made the movie in Los Angeles, where they have these animal-talent agencies. Basically, you can go through the list of dogs and cats. Depending on what you’re needing them to do, they have very specific dogs that they can pair you up with. Then you just go through this photo album and see which one is a good fit. You have to be very specific about the temperament and all that kind of stuff. So we cast like that. We cast by photos and descriptions, met them in person, and then made an evaluation in that way.
HtN: You have a lot of collaborators on the project. What was it like working with your producers Kelly Williams, Jonathan Duffy and Rebecca Green? It was basically a 10-year process from the idea to where we are now.
YT: I think Kelly and Jon were initially involved in the early development stages. Rebecca Green came in maybe two years later. I think the nature of producing is such a long haul. It’s not something where people just come aboard and jump off right away. It’s a long haul. And then producers have to multitask and do multiple projects at once. The three of them came together in a way that, to me, felt very organic in terms of what they felt they were good at doing. They could divide and conquer with the project. That’s how they came together. I knew Kelly and Jon because I’ve worked with them before, but I also was friends with them before I worked with them. Rebecca Green is someone I was introduced to after I worked with Kelly and Jon.
HtN: How about your co-writer, Clay Liford?
YT: I’ve been friends with Clay since we lived in Dallas. At this point, I’ve known him for 20 years. So it was one of those things where I felt like a lot of the friendship between Emma and Stan in the movie mirrored some of our conflicts and tensions in similar ways. So we just thought it was like, “Okay. Let’s just put this into the story.”
HtN: So that central friendship in the film is a mirror, in a way, of your relationship with Clay?
YT: Yes. I wouldn’t say it’s autobiographical, because I think you have to change things and amp things up in a way for the film, but I think some of the underlying differences in this idea that you shouldn’t be with someone who’s bad for you is something that is drawn from our friendship, in a way.
HtN: How did you navigate, in writing the story, the balance between gentle humor and deep sadness? What were the challenges there?
YT: I maintain that comedy is a harder art form than drama. So much of comedy is also about how you have to be confident that the thing you’re putting out there is actually funny to other people. My approach with this project is very much about whether or not Clay and I can find it funny, and then we will do readings and stuff, and get a sense of, “Is this landing? Is this funny? Is this funny in a way that feels too much like a very deliberately designed joke?” Which is something that I wanted to avoid, personally, because my intention is to not just make a comedy. I feel like the humor has to be grounded in everyday life. I always looked at that as my guide, figuring out, “Is this joke real or is it too manufactured?” In that sense, that was the way we crafted the humor and also just the gentleness of the film. I think all those things are pretty much drawn from life, honestly.
HtN: Of course, comedy may be hard, but you have a standup comic in your lead, Margaret Cho. Speaking of the cast, I really do like your cast, Kenneth Choi in particular, because he’s someone I’ve long seen in these small supporting roles, and I think here he has a real chance to shine. How did you assemble your ensemble? I know you had a casting director, but how did you come about getting this great ensemble together?
YT: That’s the usual process, of submitting it to their reps. It gets forwarded to them and then they read it. If they respond to it…
HtN: But did you have Kenneth Choi in mind from the beginning?
YT: No, not initially. Kenneth was someone who came up through our casting director’s recommendations. I knew of his work already. I think, with him, it was interesting, because I think I know his body of work in a very specific way. He tends to play fairly edgy and more intense characters. So there was a part of where, for me, I was like, “I don’t think I’ve seen him do something like All That We Love.”
Margaret Cho in ALL THAT WE LOVE
I know actors always get put in a box. For me, I’m always interested in seeing them outside the box. It’s the same with Margaret. We haven’t really quite seen her do something that’s sadder and more dramatic. With Kenneth, I was curious about what he would be like if he played a role like the one in this film. So I think it’s just that kind of stuff.
A lot of this starts from the initial conversations that I had with Kenny to get a sense of, “OK. What are you getting out of this? What is your interpretation?” Because I trust that the interpretation is very telling in terms of whether they get it or not. If they get it, like he did, I just trust that he’ll deliver when we start shooting it.
HtN: You have a lot of other great collaborators on the film, as well. I really like the score by Jon Natchez. A previous score of his I also really liked was in the film Luzzu. Then you’ve got production designer Angelique Clark, and of course your cinematographer, Jon Keng. Anything you’d like to say about working with them?
YT: I think Jon Natchez came about because Kelly and Jon had worked with him before in their previous films. I like his work. So I think, again, with him, it was a very similar starting point of having a conversation to see what he thought about the script and what vibe he got from it, and how to translate that through music. Just that kind of discussion about sounds and instruments and all that kind of stuff.
I think with Jon Keng and Angelique … for me, I am very intentional with my collaborators now, meaning I don’t only just want to work with people who are very good at what they’re doing, but I also want them to be kind and decent people. I have had so many bad experiences in the past, working with not-great personalities, that I’m just at a point right now where I feel like it’s not worth it, honestly, to put up with bullshit. So I was very intentional with the conversations that I had with anyone we were considering hiring, because I think me and Rebecca and Kelly and Jon, we were at a point where we just all wanted to work with great people.
HtN: I’m glad it worked out so well. Thanks for chatting with me!
YT: Thank you.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
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