Michelle Yeoh threw a few punches to ease the nerves of her “The Brothers Sun” son

Justin Chien and Sam Song Li speak to EW about working with the “legend” Yeoh and mining from their own experience for their respective roles.

For actors Justin Chien and Sam Song Li, The Brothers Sun blurred the line between reality and fiction.

In the Netflix action comedy from creators Byron Wu and Brad Falchuk (out now), Chien plays Charles “Chairleg” Sun, the son of a powerful Taiwanese gangster, who relocates from Taipei to Los Angeles to protect his mother Eileen (Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh) and younger brother Bruce (Li) after his father is shot by an assassin. His estranged brother, however, is completely oblivious to his family’s ties to the criminal underworld.

Big bloody action fight sequences abound (it’s a Yeoh project, after all), but the dramedy, at its core, tells a familiar story about family and what it means to carve out one’s own path. For the young stars, it was startling to come across a story that closely mirrored their own lives. “As an actor, you're lucky if you have three to four auditions a year that really resonate with who you are,” Chien tells EW over Zoom, sitting next to his onscreen brother Li. “Out of all the auditions I've done, this was the one that resonated with me the most. I was like, I know who this is. This is me.” 

Li — who similarly grew up in L.A’s San Gabriel Valley, where much of the series is set, to a single mother — says he was "mind blown” after reading the breakdown of Bruce. “He’s a naive college student forced to study to be a doctor but dreams of wanting to be an improv comedian and actor, and grew up with a single mom,” Li says. “My mom really wanted me to study to become a doctor, or at least an engineer because she is one, and I chose to become an actor. So there was a lot that I could draw from my own personal experience.”

Perhaps the gig didn’t require too much acting from the onscreen brothers, then? “Well, I don’t kill people on a regular basis,” Chien quips.

Ah, right, the killings. Things get messy when a rising faction emerges to challenge the influential Suns, and it’s up to Charles, Eileen, and Bruce to eradicate the threat. To play Charles, a trained killer who'd prefer baking over murder, Chien referenced classic films (The Godfather, Infernal Affairs) and learned to bake (Japanese cheesecake, chocolate fondant). "It gave me insight into why baking is so important for Charles," he says. "You can't freestyle. Everything has to be precise: the timing, the milligram of sugar. It's one of the few times in his life that there's any semblance of peace, whereas the rest of his life is chaotic."

Li, though no stranger to comedy theatre, took classes at famed improv theatre Groundlings to embody his reluctant hero — and it gave him insight into "how Bruce saw life, which is to 'Yes, and..' the world," he says. “'Yes, and..' is a term in improv where basically you just go with the flow, you want to keep it going. That became fundamental to Bruce, to approach his life with a 'Yes, and…' mentality. I think that's why he adapts so well in the triad world."

While danger looms large, the Suns must also heal the wounds caused by their separation. It was seamless for Chien and Li to build that dynamic with Yeoh — though “I was very intimidated the first time I worked with her,” Li concedes. “Who wouldn't be, right? It's Michelle freaking Yeoh! But she has such an inviting presence. She's so generous with her energy that instantly I felt like I'd known her for years. I felt like I was talking to my own mom.”

Chien, too, was starstruck, and recalls one particular moment with his "disarming" costar while he battled his nerves. "I remember I went into her trailer just to chat, and she punched me on the shoulder and she's like, ‘You're so serious. You're so tense. You need to just chill out!’ And in my mind, I'm like, well, it's easy for you to say, Michelle. I’m not going toe-to-toe with the legend here."

The series, Li observes, "is all about choices." "At the end of the day, you're not living for someone else," he says. "Be bold in your choices. Make them confidently for yourself."

The Brothers Sun is streaming on Netflix.

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