John Cho Sinks Teeth Into Father-Daughter Drama in 'Don't Make Me Go'

John Cho hasn't seen a movie like Don't Make Me Go before because, in his words, the story would usually focus on a son rather than a daughter.

He leads the new Prime Video movie as a single father who sets off on an educational road trip with his daughter after finding out he has a terminal disease. Cho, who came to prominence in bro comedies like American Pie and Harold and Kumar, stars as Max Park, while newcomer Mia Isaac plays his daughter Wally.

The emotional comedy drama is out exclusively on Prime Video on Friday, July 15 and ahead of its launch Cho, Isaac and director Hannah Marks spoke to Newsweek.

An Overlooked Genre

Max is the single father to a moody teenager in Don't Make Me Go. After learning he has a terminal disease, he takes his reluctant daughter on a road trip which, unbeknownst to her, will reunite her with her estranged mother.

"I haven't seen a lot of father-daughter movies. I'm not sure why," Cho, Star Trek's Kikaru Sulu and Cowboy Bebop's Spike Spiegel, told Newsweek. "[Don't Make Me Go] is a little bit of a take off on a familiar setup. The dad is going to die and wants to do something for his kid, but it's usually a son.

"Because we do think of teaching as gendered in a lot of ways, that used to be the prevalent way of thinking, so this is a fresher take," Cho said.

"I loved that it was a father-daughter story," director Hannah Marks told Newsweek, commenting on the script written by Vera Herbet. "It's such an important relationship, yet there's not many movies about it, which is really surprising."

Marks continued: "It felt like a great opportunity to tell a story that has a lot of heart and feels really pure, but also has some originality to it."

Don't Make Me Go marks 29-year-old Marks' third feature length movie as a director. Before taking the helm of After Everything (2018) and Mark, Mary & Some Other People (2021), Marks was best-known for her acting roles in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Awkward. She also has a small role in Don't Make Me Go as Tessa.

The movie is a tearjerker, and the team behind Don't Make Me Go were not immune to its sentimental charm.

"I remember tearing up during the father daughter dance scene, when we were filming at the jazz club," Marks said. "There's something about seeing them hold each other like that, that really moved me in a way that I wasn't expecting."

She admitted that even during rehearsals, when people were dressed in sweatpants in a warehouse, she still found it moving.

"Also a stress of a shoot can make you cry a little bit too. Your emotions are heightened," she said.

Generational Divides

Isaac plays Wally Park, daughter of Cho's Max Park, the teen who wants to be anywhere else but traveling the country with her embarrassing and cautious dad over summer break.

She too thinks the father-daughter genre has been "overlooked" in cinema and the dynamic we see onscreen between Isaac and Cho was forged on long roadtrips with the director Marks.

"I just felt so connected, deeply connected with John right away. And I'm just really grateful for him because a lot of that has to do with his experience.

"We played a lot of the 20 Questions game. John was better at it because he'd pick a lot of like, old pop culture references that I didn't know."

With 50-year-old Cho, 29-year-old Marks and Isaac, who was 16 at the time, there were three generations playing, which led to some crossed wires.

"It was more just a confusing game of all of us realizing we're not in the same age group," Marks laughed.

Isaac added: "We played a lot of games, we listened to a lot of music, we ate snacks, it was just like, it was a real road trip for us making the movie."

Wally is the teenager we all know—one that can't stay off her phone, develops crushes on older teens and who rolls her eyes at her dad's jokes. Cho can relate to this as a father in real life too.

"It is impossible [to avoid being 'the embarrassing dad.'] I'm here to report that it's a fool's errand. And you might as well sink into the dork seat," he conceded.

"I think you can try your hardest to be cool but at the end of the day, you're gonna be embarrassing to a teenager," Isaac told Newsweek, confirming that it's an uphill battle for fathers.

While tears were shed on set, Isaac admitted that she felt the emotion of Don't Make Me Go even before she landed the part.

"I read the script when I was 16, and after my second callback, I remember just sitting in my bed and going through that last act and just like fully sobbing and tears."

Isaac continued: "I was like, 'I need to go hug my parents right now' and I think it just reminded me how much I love my parents. It reminded me so much of my own relationship with my dad. It was hard not to have an emotional reaction to the script, and I immediately knew that I wanted to be a part of it."

Don't Make Me Go also features performances from Kaya Scodelario (Maze Runner), Stefania LaVie Owen (Sweet Tooth) and Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords). It debuted in June at the Tribeca Film Festival to positive reviews.

The movie will be available to watch exclusively on Prime Video from Friday, July 15, 2022.