Marilyn Fu brings a community’s pain to the screen with ‘Rosemead’

Adapting a real event with deep cultural resonance, Fu brings empathy and precision to a film that lingers long after its final frame. In this candid conversation with JoySauce, she reflects on adapting a harrowing real-life event, collaborating with Liu and director Eric Lin, and the personal threads that shaped her writing.

Rosemead premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Festival in June, and will be released on Friday in theaters in New York and on Dec. 12 in Los Angeles.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Rasha Goel: You began your career as a reporter, writing for more than 40 publications. What inspired the transition from journalism to screenwriting?
Marilyn Fu: I went to film school at Columbia, so I was already starting my first film while living in New York. The first film is a lot, as we know, which many people can attest to. So, I began my writing, reporting, and fact checking and research—I was doing all of that while working on my film. I’d be waiting for something and sitting there writing screenplays, probably when I wasn’t supposed to, but that’s how I kept everything going. Making films is a long journey, and you have to sustain yourself.

What really stayed with me was the inspiration I got from the editors I worked with. They were at the top of their game. Deep diving into stories, exploring design, history, photographers—it was an incredible mix of inspiration. Even now when I pitch new show or film concepts, I feel echoes of that time at LIFE Books or The New York Times.

RG: Rosemead is an incredibly heavy story, especially knowing it’s based on a real-life event. What about this story made you feel it needed to become a film rather than remain a news story?
MF: That’s a complicated question, because so much credit goes to Frank Shyong, the journalist who wrote the article. He had to earn the trust of the people who were still living and a part of the story. He was the crucial bridge between their story and us as filmmakers.

For me, my point of entry came when Andrew Corkin and Theo James optioned the article. They knew it should be a film. At the time, I’d been writing ensemble pieces with teenage girls and slipping an Asian American character into a family dynamic or group. I was tired of that. I wanted to write a lead—an actual starring role for an Asian woman. When I read the article, I was blown away. And I knew this role would be different. It wasn’t sexy. It was very complicated and challenging. That was exciting to me. 

RG: And Lucy Liu carries that complexity so beautifully. What was your process working with her to bring this character to life?
MF: Lucy came on board about a year after the first draft was finished, and she had great input. I had written in a romantic fling for the character, and she said, “I don't think that this woman, in this kind of community, would risk her reputation to have an affair, to have a kind of fling.” And that made complete sense. These are the moments when you really appreciate actors, because the jump from page to screen is huge. The character has to feel truthful, or the audience will sense it’s false on screen. And that was just one example. She had great input.

RG: When adapting real events, especially ones involving trauma, how do you approach honoring the truth while shaping it into something emotionally resonant for viewers?
MF: Someone at a recent Q&A asked if I ever considered a different ending, and the answer is no. This was always the ending because it was the ending of the true story. We were never going to shift from that.

But we did discover things along the way. In Frank’s article, he mentions Irene asking a friend to burn all their pictures. When I went back to Frank's notes, things that weren't in his article, I saw that her friend had not been able to bring herself to burn the pictures. Ultimately, Irene’s sister burned them. Those two moments fascinated me, and that’s how I ended up finding a moment at the end where these two pieces of what really happened come together.

RG: I can imagine that writing something like this could take a personal toll. Was there a moment in the script that felt especially heavy for you, or something that stayed with you long after you finished writing it?
MF: There’s a moment near the end, without giving too much away, where Irene, after what she’s done, crawls into bed with her son. That moment appears in Frank’s article, and I had written it into the script exactly as it was reported. On the page, it played beautifully, and it was the truth. But when it came time to film, there was a decision not to show Joe again after that act. The reality of that moment on screen would have played very differently. It would have stayed with the audience, and when you cut to black, that image would be all they carried with them. People ask about that choice a lot. I think that there's just something about that moment that stays with people, and they want to know about it.

RG: Rosemead grapples with mental health, violence, family, and the pressures of cultural expectations. Which of these themes hit closest to home for you as a writer?
MF: I think the last two—family and cultural expectations are deeply intertwined. My parents immigrated from Taiwan, and I was born here, but I often think about their journey and the difficulties: arriving in a new country, not speaking the language, navigating everything as strangers. When you carry that context forward, the expectations immigrant parents place on their children can feel enormous.

And I think when you layer mental illness or really any issue deemed “shameful” or something not to be talked about, it creates a whole hotbed of conflict. There’s who you feel you are, who your parents want you to be, and what our community expects of us. All of that was swirling in my mind while writing Rosemead.

RG: Do you feel that Asian American communities have become more accepting of mental health conversations, or is there still a significant stigma?
MF: I feel the stigma is still very present. The numbers show that Asian Americans are the least likely group to seek help or access mental health services. If we work backwards from that, it’s clear there are still so many conversations to be had. That’s one of the major reasons our team pushed relentlessly to get this film made and into theaters. At festivals, I’ve had conversations with people who shared their personal experience, both those struggling themselves and those who were caregivers. Those moments have been deeply touching and reaffirm why we made this movie.

RG: I’d love to talk about your collaboration with Eric Lin. How did the screenplay evolve once he came on board?
MF: Eric had fantastic ideas about the script, and from the moment I met him, when he came on board, I felt like this person had a vision. And the vision organically matched up with the script. It was a great match.

We talked a lot about Joe, and I really love what Eric brought to his character. He brought joy. In my early drafts, Joe was already at a breaking point from the moment we meet him. And I think in the film, he is as well, but we get to see these pops of moments with him and his friends, with him and his mom at the beach just enjoying the sun and the sea. I think that that really brings something to the film that I love.

RG: When you’re deep in the writing process, what’s your go-to ritual? Do you have a playlist, a favorite snack, a lucky pen? What keeps you going?
MF: I wrote Rosemead while I was pregnant with our twins, before I became a mother. And because motherhood is such a big part of the film, that timing feels meaningful. Before kids, I had a nice spacious writing space, and I kept crystals nearby that I would touch between scenes. I had my playlist, my coffee, everything in its place. Writing today looks very different. Now it’s more like, open the laptop whenever I can, sit in a corner, get a couple of pages out before someone needs something from me.

RG: I’d love to ask about your upcoming projects. You move so fluidly between genres—you have The Baxters, which is a faith-based drama, and now The Copenhagen Test coming up. How do you recalibrate your storytelling instincts when you’re shifting between such different worlds?
MF: For me, it comes down to identifying the core thing of each project. With The Copenhagen Test, for example, it’s an espionage thriller. It’s about a first-generation Chinese American man who is forced to prove his allegiance even though he already works for the government.
That tension fascinated me. We’ve seen throughout history, politically, and during COVID, how quickly an Asian face can become viewed as dangerous. I thought the script, the project explores that reality in an entertaining way.