The Biggest Bombshells from Jon M. Chu's New Memoir: Dancing Off with Miley Cyrus, Confronting Justin Bieber

Film director Jon M. Chu documents his journey to the big screen in his new memoir Viewfinder.

From growing up as a first-generation Chinese American in Silicon Valley, Calif., to directing some of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the seminal romantic-comedy Crazy Rich Asians, Chu, 44, has plenty of stories to share. In his memoir, he takes it back to the very beginning: recalling his painful professional stage debut in middle school, the first short movies he made and the one that captured the attention of his idol Steven Spielberg, and his first time seeing the Broadway musical Wicked — which he is adapting into a two-part movie that will hit screens this fall.

The memoir, co-written by Jeremy McCarter, features numerous celebrity stories, as well as heartfelt observations of Chu's upbringing, family and cultural identity. 

Here are some of the most surprising bombshells and revelations from the book, which is available for purchase now, wherever books are sold.

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Before becoming a famed director, Chu made his professional stage debut in an all-Asian production of the late Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures. At the time, he was 11 years old and auditioned for the show with a performance of "Think of Me" from The Phantom of the Opera. The director recalls the experience in his memoir, detailing how he give his homemade resume to the casting agents–along with a recent school photo as his headshot.

Once he landed his role, Chu was tasked with performing one of Sondheim’s favorite songs, "Someone in the Tree," every night. But during one performance, he skipped a verse. "My heart sank — I tried not to cry," Chu writes. After that fateful experience, he got wind of a review that spoke poorly of his performance. "I didn’t want to finish the run — or go onstage ever again," he shares, before noting that his mother encouraged him to finish what he'd started.

When Chu was a student at USC School of Cinematic Arts, he attended a showcase of short films made by an older class in his department. Here, he witnessed a racist short being played, to the amusement of his peers. Upset by the experience, Chu decided to channel his emotions into his own short film Silent Beats, which went on to gain recognition within the film community.

The six-minute short follows a young Black tap dancer as he faces discrimination from a convenience store employee. Silent Beats attracted the attention of a few agents and from there, Chu began to work on a new short called When the Kids Are Away. After he finished the follow-up short, his agents arranged screenings of it, which was how it caught the attention of his idol Steven Spielberg. The Amblin Entertainment co-founder then reached out to Chu. The two met in a conference room near Spielberg's office and bonded over their love of film, musicals and their upcoming projects.

After the popularity of Chu's two short films, he was hired by Sony Pictures to direct a remake of Bye Bye Birdie. He dedicated time to meeting with potential leads — which included Britney Spears, Kirsten Dunst and Seann William Scott — and workshopping the script with Tina Fey. But he quickly found himself in trouble, recalling, "As my ideas grew, so did the budget."

After working on the movie for over a year, Chu says he was summoned to meet with executive Amy Pascal, who was ready to deliver some bad news. He shared his newer ideas during the meeting, and Pascal held off on giving him a final decision. The director recalls her responding with, "...seeing that makes me want to see that movie." Unfortunately, when Chu was called back a few days later, Pascal told him that his movie was canceled. "Our conversation was a blur, but certain phrases stick with me. Phrases like 'can’t do it' and 'too risky' and 'pressure from Wall Street,'" he writes.

Chu recalls pitching an adaptation of The Great Gatsby before getting "squashed" by Baz Luhrmann’s all-star production for Warner Bros. He writes that the lead character Jay Gatsby is "the hero of my favorite novel," and he relate -

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d to the fictional character’s struggles throughout his journey to land his big break.

In the late 2000s, the director was busy working on Step Up 3D and being captivated by YouTube when he came across Miley Cyrus' popular webshow The Miley and Mandy Show. Inspired by his love for dance and the online world, Chu teamed up with Step Up 2 star Adam Sevani to challenge the Miley and Mandy to a dance battle. He says they "weren't even sure if she would notice" when they posted their YouTube video with the request. However, Cyrus and her friend responded and soon people from all around the world was tuning in to their dance battle. The two teams eventually battled it out on live television at the Teen Choice Awards. Chu reflects on the time he spent filming and editing the videos, writing, "At that stage of my life, it was better than Hollywood."

Chu was hired to direct two of Justin Bieber's concert films, 2011's Justin Bieber: Never Say Neverand 2013's Justin Bieber: Believe. While on set, the two worked closely together, given the intimate nature of the movies, and Chu notes that the popstar had a change in attitude while in production for the second one. "He wasn't a kid doing homework on the bus anymore," the director writes. "He'd had his first run-in with the law, an argument with a photographer that nearly turned into a fistfight, and enough embarrassing headlines to suggest that bigger problems might lie ahead."

He says he confronted Bieber about his behavior, calling him "the perfect candidate to become a train wreck," which the singer denied. Looking back on their relationship, Chu now writes, "I'd grown to care for Justin by this point, so I wanted to believe him. I wanted him to have a happy, healthy life and to make his music. I still want that for him."

Do you ever look at a movie and think, "Wow that must've been really fun to film!" Chu says a fun time was definitely had while he was directing the 2016 movie Now You See Me 2. He credits his positive experience to the personalities of the actors, but states that the production wasn't always a walk in the park.

Shining a light on Mark Ruffalo, Chu writes that the actor was welcoming and gave him a hug on their first day together. "Which is not to say that he always made it easy for me and his scene-mates," he adds. Ruffalo, he continues, "never gave the same performance twice." Chu describes his acting style as "so in-the-moment that he would even react to something a crew member in his line of sight happened to do." As a result, Chu had to tell people to "hold still while the camera was rolling." But in the end, the director compares the shoot to being "a chaperone on the best field trip ever."

Ken Jeong was the first person to call Chu when Crazy Rich Asians was officially announced by Warners Bros. At the time, the actor — who went on to play Goh Wye Mun in the romantic comedy —invited Chu to the set of his ABC sitcom Dr. Ken. However, when they got together, it became apparent to Chu that Jeong was not necessarily vying for a role in the movie. Instead, during a lunch break, the two enjoyed Korean BBQ and the actor offered his support. "It meant the world to me to know that one of Hollywood's leading Asian actors had my back," Chu recalls. "And I began to see how much the movie already meant to people in my community."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the director's 2021 movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights, like a number of other movies at the time, was added to a streaming platform (in this case, HBO Max) on the same day as its theatrical release. Chu has been open about his disapproval of the decision on social media and in interviews, but in his memoir, he unashamedly tells his story in his own words.

He recalls being told that there was "nothing we could do about it," despite a previous agreement with Warner Bros. that the movie would have a theatrical release. Multiple times in his memoir, he describes the decision as "s----" and says he was even more offended when the press release went out 45 minutes after he received the news and was accompanied by "an elaborate trailer."

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