Lana Candor Celebrates How To All The Boys 2 Gives Asian Americans A 'Cinderella Moment'

It's happening, you guys. In just about a week, To all of the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You will officially hit Netflix, and we'll finally get to be able to see Lara Jean, Peter, and John Ambrose's love triangle play out on screen. Before that happens, though, star Lana Condor opened up to EW about the significance of Asian American representation in film, and which scene from the sequel made the largest impact on her personally.


"There's a scene where Lara Jean is in this cute, almost Cinderella gown and she walks down the stairs to John Ambrose," Condor, who is a Vietnamese-American actor playing a Korean-American character, instructed them outlet. "I was waiting on top of the stairs right before we began rolling and it also hit me all at once how special that moment was because we never get Cinderella moments a lot."


Condor then explained that this kind of representation in movies would've been life-changing for her as a kid. "As a young girl, I never got to be able to see a Cinderella moment where the girl looked like me," she continued. "This is the most crucial segment of the story for me is being able to resemble our community. It's building a space for Asian Residents of the
U.S. To tell their story and have a moment."


She's right. The To All of the Males films — along with the book trilogy — are definitely making space for Asian Residents of the
U.S. In popular media. "The first book came out in 2014 and was the initial young adult book to have a Asian person on the cover on the New York Times Bestseller List," author Jenny Han said. And as EW pointed out, the opening film was praised for being one of the few rom-coms with a Asian American female lead.


The outlet also drew attention to the fact that, in several ways, Condor became the role model she habitually needed, which became especially clear as soon as young Asian American girls determined to dress up as Lara Jean for Halloween immediately following the initial movie's release. "There's a little bit something in the opening book about how Lara Jean never has anything to dress up as for Halloween, and that's something from my life," Han mentioned. "So it's cool to be able to see all these young Asian American ladies own moment."


To all of the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You will hit Netflix on Wednesday, February 12.