Get To Know Malaysian Filmmaker Adele Lim & How She Got Her Foot In Hollywood
Adele Lim grew up in PJ and truly climbed the ladder in the Hollywood showbiz industry.
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The movie studios must have heard fans of The Princess Diaries films (from social media posts like the one below) because Princess Diaries 3 is in the works with Malaysian filmmaker Adele Lim set to direct!
Actress Anne Hathaway, who played the titular character Mia Thermopolis who eventually became the Queen of Genovia, confirmed news of the third movie in a video posted to her social media channels on 5 October.
Princess Diaries 3 will be produced by Hathaway’s production company Somewhere Pictures.
So, who is Adele Lim and why does her name sound familiar?
Lim was previously the co-screenwriter for Crazy Rich Asians. She was brought in by director Jon M. Chu who needed her help to make the script culturally authentic.
Lim rewrote the third act, including the famous Mahjong showdown between Constance Wu and Michelle Yeoh’s characters.
However, Lim left the sequel after being offered significantly less pay than her male co-writer Peter Chiarelli.
Lim went on to write for Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) and directed and produced the 2023 comedy film, Joy Ride starring Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, and Sabrina Wu.
How did Adele Lim get her start in the film industry?
Lim was raised in a traditional, multigenerational home in Petaling Jaya and her experience growing up with many family members around makes her proud of her Malaysian roots.
She studied in a prestigious all-girls school SMK Sri Aman. Her foray into writing began in her teen years. She would become the editor of her school’s yearbooks and had her first paid writing gig writing a weekly column for The Star when she was an older teen.
She was a backup dancer for Ning Baizura “for a hot minute” but wasn’t good enough to become a professional backup dancer.
She did two years of the American Transfer Program at KDU College Damansara Utama and then left for the United States.
In 1996, she graduated from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts with a degree in TV/Film.
It was around the time of the Asian financial crisis and the entire Southeast Asian economy was about to collapse. She met an American boy in college who said he was driving out to Los Angeles after graduation to get work as a TV writer.
At the time, the idea sounded completely romantic and fantastic to Lim. They travelled in a cheap, beat-up car from Boston to LA and stayed in the tiniest apartment because they had no money.
She would take a lot of grunt work and hustled until an opportunity arose. Her first taste of Hollywood was becoming a script coordinator for Xena: Warrior Princess (2000). She landed the underpaid job despite having an empty-ish resume and got her crash course in TV writing.
Working in the writer’s room helped her learn and grow a lot. They even introduced her to their agent which kicked off her writing career.
Lim went on to write for several television shows such as One Tree Hill, Life Unexpected, Reign, Star-Crossed, Private Practice, and Lethal Weapon.
She began to rise the ranks over the years. From writing, she ran writer’s rooms, and eventually ran her own show, The CW’s Star-Crossed (2014). She was also starting to develop shows and creating pilots to sell.
She met and worked with Chu on a dance pilot for Fox which they loved and thought was amazing. While the show didn’t get picked up, it turned out to be another opportunity for Lim.
A few months later, Chu called her up and offered her to work on the Crazy Rich Asian script which he felt didn’t have an authentic Asian voice then.
I’ve learnt that there’s no such thing as a bad move or right or wrong. It’s what you do with the opportunity.
Adele Lim in an interview with Tatler Asia
Now that she has successful shows under her belt, does it ever get scary for her to live up to expectations?
Lim, who had finished with Raya and the Last Dragon after experiencing the monumental success of Crazy Rich Asians, told Tatler Asia that she didn’t really set expectations for herself and the given projects.
She shared that she doesn’t think about how big a hit it’ll be, even while working on Crazy Rich Asians. What’s important to her is whether she loves the story and whether it’s a wonderful story to tell. She said any success of the projects after is a happy occurrence.
She also shared that TV writing is incredibly gruelling and a super competitive space. She said it’s a career for people who stick with it and understand that writing is a learned craft and not a God-given gift.
It’s for the people who have the stomach for it and have thick skin.
Adele Lim
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