Tze Chun Talks Going On A Joy Ride With A 13-Foot Tall Main Character In ‘I’m A Virgo’

Tze Chun is quite the jack-of-all-trades. Mr. Chun has a resume that includes painter, producer, director and writer. His credits include hit shows such as Gotham, Once Upon a Time and many more. Tze has been on one hell of a hot steak, with not one but two hit shows out recently. The Max original Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai and I’m A Virgo over at Prime Video are both critically acclaimed and already generating a ton of buzz. I was lucky enough to interview Chun for the junket for Gremlins, and again for I’m A Virgo, the latter of which he co-show runs.

Speaking on how he came onto the project, he replied, “I was coming off of Gremlins, and my manger called me and asked, ‘Are you a fan of Boots Riley?’ And, I was like, ‘Yeah, I loved his first movie.’ He said, ‘Well, he has a pilot script about a 13-foot tall 19-year-old black man growing up in Oakland.’ So, I was like, ‘Um… okay. Send it over.’ I didn’t really know what to expect, but when I read it, it was one of my favorite pilots. In that very first meeting, I just talked to him about our similar experiences. I was an indie filmmaker like him, and I knew he wanted to do something really cool and visual. I had a good idea on how to do that, with having a background in animation and comic books, which all kind of played into the story.”

Given that the show explores themes including class system and racism, I asked if he agreed that genres of fantasy and sci-fi were good jumping off points for social commentary. “The thing we talked a lot about writing season one, a lot of it was how do you not let something become didactic or feel like the point is so easy to understand? One of things I really liked about the pilot script when I read it is, like a lot of Boots work, it defies expectations, but also it refuses to be categorized. For me, the main thing about when I take on a project now: is it something I’ve seen before? Because, if we’ve seen it before then there is just a certain way where things can get settled into a pattern. My commitment to Boots in that first meeting was, anything that you want to try we will, but I will never tell you we can’t entertain an idea. Anything you wanna try, as weird as you want to be, however you want to do it. We’re going to spend the time to try and figure it out.”

And, speaking on the core themes of the show, Chun replied, “At the end of the day, this is a coming-of-age story. It’s a coming-of-age story we haven’t seen before. That kind of universal emotional feeling of experiencing things for the first time, was something we always came back to in the writers’ room.”

We talked about the amazing cast and how clearly everyone seemed to vibe. Chun reflected, “One of the great things about our cast is they’re all in their 20’s and meeting each other for the first time in New Orleans and Oakland where we were shooting. On set they became really good friends, and I think that chemistry is really important to the first season of this show. Those friendships feel real because it was real.” Talking about shooting this strange series, Chun commented, “When you’re actually there shooting, it’s really surreal.”

My final question, I asked what Chun would want audiences to take away from I’m A Virgo. Chun replied, “In the screenings that we had, what I’ve come away with was people have a lot of fun watching this show. We’ve always pitched it as a joy-ride featuring a 13-foot-tall main character. Even though there’s stuff in the show that is joyous and sad, dark and political, at the end of the day, it’s just a really fun joy-ride. I’m really excited for people to experience it.”

I’m A Virgo is currently available to stream on Prime Video.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyKhFwEo7c]