As students pass on scooters, skateboards and foot, Ho describes “a series of surprises” that led to her voice being featured in the film.
A first-generation Chinese American from Woodland Hills, Calif., the 19-year-old is a lifelong singer who has performed on the NBC singing competition show “The Voice.” She is also minoring in songwriting at USC.
The chance to shift its meaning came in February. Ho received a text from a former voice teacher asking whether she’d “be down to submit a demo for an unnamed film and TV project,” she says. “He was looking for a young girl who could sing Mandarin.” Ho grew up in a Mandarin-speaking household, and “Yellow” was one of her favorite songs.
Despite the fact that she was starting her second semester as a freshman — and was already overwhelmed with studies — late one night, she got her dad on the phone to perfect the Mandarin lyrics for “Yellow,” working line by line through meanings and inflections.
“I actually fell asleep at the piano and woke up the next morning and recorded it before class,” Ho says.
“I freaked out in the car with my dad, who was there to help me with the dialect stuff,” Ho says.
That ending song was one of a number that Chu and music supervisor Gabe Hilfer had contemplated when brainstorming the movie-ending sequence. Hilfer says that after Chu suggested the Mandarin version of “Yellow,” the scene locked into place.
Ho said that after she read Chu’s note, she felt the song even more deeply.
“I could almost quote the letter now because I’ve read it so many times,” she says.
Ho’s voice resonated with the production team.
Throughout the movie, she also saw images of the China she knows and loves through her and her family’s annual trip to Beijing to visit her grandparents and extended family.
The way “Crazy Rich Asians” navigated those familial ties was especially resonant, Ho says.
Her own parents aren’t so strict.