Read more on hollywoodreporter.com

“The Pressure Is Coming From All Directions”: ‘THR Presents’ Q&A With ‘The Cleaning Lady’ Star Elodie Yung and Executive Producers Melissa Carter and Miranda Kwok

On the Fox drama The Cleaning Lady, Elodie Yung plays Thony De La Rosa, a Cambodian-Filipino doctor who moves to the United States to seek treatment for her son, Luca, who has a rare and life-threatening disorder. Living in Las Vegas on an expired visa while she waits for the treatment her son requires, Thony finds work as a cleaner — until she witnesses a violent crime and is offered a job as a doctor for an organized crime syndicate. 

Series star Elodie Yung, showrunner Melissa Carter and writer Miranda Kwok, who also developed the series, joined The Hollywood Reporter’s Tyler Coates for a THR Presents Q&A powered by Vision Media to discuss how the show incorporated Yung’s own cultural background into the character of Thony and how they’re tackling heavy subjects rarely seen in a broadcast crime drama.

Related Stories

Elodie, how did the project come your way and what were your first impressions?

ELODIE YUNG I auditioned, so it was a normal process — sending tapes, meeting the creatives and the director for a callback. The scenes that they gave me were well written, but I thought it could really go both ways — either very TV-like and sugary, or we could really unfold relevant topics, because Thony is an immigrant and she has to go through so much to save her son. [The show] falls into the second category, and I think we’re doing something really good and meaningful. I was so glad to be on board. And immediately, when I got the part, Melissa called me and she said that they wanted to embrace my heritage, my Cambodian roots, which was very unusual. I have acted for 20 years, and that’s never happened to me. I was very shocked and pleased, and I sent them a list of the names we could use [for the character], which are all my aunt’s names. 

Miranda and Melissa, what were the conversations you two had once Elodie was on board about bringing her own personal culture into this character?

MIRANDA KWOK Authenticity is such a key factor of this piece. When we found Elodie — who is obviously a stunning, fantastic artist and talent — we knew we had to cast her. But the original role was written for a Filipino woman. We didn’t want to force her to play a Filipina character when she wasn’t herself Filipina. We totally embraced [her background] and created a backstory to suit that character instead — that she was born in Cambodia, but went to the Philippines for medical school, and there met her family. That way, we were still able to have a Filipino-Cambodian family at the core, because having that representation for Filipinos, especially as domestic workers in the States, was an important piece that we wanted to hold on to.

MELISSA CARTER Once we embraced Thony’s Cambodian side, it opened up all these interesting discussions. People assume that if you’re doing a show where someone comes from the Philippines, they have to be Filipino. But there’s a large influx of Chinese in the Philippines, and Cambodian, and Laos — all of the different mixtures of people that come from another country, just like it is in America. With all the [actors], we tried to embrace not only where they came from, but something about their own personal history that we could weave into the characters. I also asked Elodie if she could sing, so we wove that into one of the episodes. It becomes fun when you can take all the talents that an actor brings with them and infuse that into the role

Did you know where Thony’s journey would take her when you began filming, or were you learning it as you received the scripts?

YUNG No, and I love being surprised. The biggest challenge, and the thing that I had to adjust to quickly, was the speed at which things were going to unfold and the speed at which Thony had to adapt herself. Thony is thrown into very difficult situations and has to make decisions on the spot. I just had to accept that she had to go through fire every time. I felt like an athlete during a marathon, so it was a great workout. But anything that was written was just a present for me. I’ve never had to play a woman who has to fight for her son, and that unfolded so many beautiful feelings. I had to look at myself and my own humanity. The choices she makes are not always right, but I knew how to go through those choices psychologically. 

The show tackles timely issues like undocumentation and healthcare, while also being a crime drama. How did you bring those themes into play?

KWOK You want to make sure you get your candy with your medicine. I was always a huge fan of Breaking Bad, so I was also inspired to create a female Breaking Bad. With those elements, we were able to fold all these interesting issues and stories, but in a very organic way to show how desperate the situation that Thony is in and what she’s going to do to get out of it. 

CARTER It’s always a challenge to do a crime show that feels original. What attracted me to this project is that you could really focus on these issues that you don’t normally see. We always say it’s like a Trojan horse — you’re taking immigration and undocumented workers and healthcare and  the American dream that’s not attainable to everyone, and you send that out in a really entertaining way. We’re bringing viewers to live vicariously through Thony, where we’re giving all the moral justifications of why she would do it, and taking them on a really fantastic journey. It is a great way to have a crime drama, but really showcase elements that we only see in the news. 

Miranda, you compared the show to Breaking Bad. Does the fact that Thony is a mother who will do anything for her son heighten the stakes?

KWOK Absolutely. Thony is such a different character than Walter White. Her trajectory is going to be very different, her moral dilemmas are going to be different. She’s a doctor in her country, so her core being is to help people. We have this Robin Hood element throughout the series; even when she’s in a terrible predicament, if she can help somebody, even at risk to herself, she’s going to do it. That makes her a quintessential hero. One of her struggles is going to be how to maintain her moral center, as the world threatens to drag her further across the moral line.

Elodie, what is it like to play a character who has to make those choices?

YUNG The key was not to judge Thony. It actually developed my empathy towards this character, because I had to feel the pain. She’s going through the struggle, the madness of her life, and trying to keep things together as everything is falling apart. I hope it translates to the audience and that it taps into their empathy and compassion. 

As writers, how do you find the ways to push your character like Thony into the places where she has to make such tough decisions? 

CARTER The pressure is coming in from all directions — from work, from family, from doing everything she can to save her son, and the crime syndicate. We were always trying to keep those plates spinning so that you felt like she could never really relax. It was a fun challenge to figure out where the next fire would break out that she would have to put out. It’s a metaphor for being a mother; you’re always multitasking to such a challenging degree, especially when you have a child who is sick. It never lets up. 

KWOK You don’t want to make it easy for the characters at all. You want to see them in those moral dilemmas and see how they figure out how to get out of it with their intellect and their resourcefulness. 

CARTER We started thinking of Thony as a superhero; she has the cloak of invisibility when she dons the cleaning lady outfit. But she’s a surgeon in her home country and brings that agency and strength and power with her in any situation. Even though she’s dressed as a cleaning woman, she can take charge of a situation, she can stand up to a gangster or stand up to a boss who’s trying to exploit his workers. That power she takes from being a surgeon, and the strength of being a mother. We liked playing with her different identities and showing how one informs the other.

KWOS And part of that is to defy the stereotypes. The show is called The Cleaning Lady, and we wanted to defy all expectations of what that means. 

Were there any particular tropes or stereotypes you wanted to avoid?

CARTER Fox challenged us right from the beginning to avoid tropes, and they had such a long list of what to avoid. We’re trying to make the character so specific and unique that you can go there with the tropes and either subvert them or embrace them and say, “OK, you’ve seen this before, but not from this point of view.”

KWOK The characters that Asian women, in particular, have to play are very limited — the martial artists, the doctor or the sex kitten. There were very specific stereotypes and tropes for Asian women that we absolutely wanted to define and break.

What’s the most exciting thing about the show for each of you?

YUNG The thing that I’m the most happy about,  and the most proud of, is that it feels like we’re shaking things from the inside. It’s broadcast TV, but we are bringing heavy topics. And I know who I work with, and I know where it comes from. There’s a lot of good intention there and meaning in what we’re doing. 

KWOK When you create a show like this, you can only hope to affect people. The amazing surprise is that so many people have embraced the show on many different levels.

CARTER What makes it effective is it’s not a preachy show. It’s entertaining, but you’re walking in the shoes of these characters, and you’re experiencing what they experience. That takes it away from the political and makes it personal. That’s how you can change hearts and minds: you create characters that people can identify with and feel like they know and feel like they understand. It’s the best way to get a message across.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

This edition of THR Presents was brought to you by Fox.