(L-R) Steven Yeun and Olivia Colman attend the 2025 Sundance Film Festival at Filmmaker Lodge on January 24, 2025, in Park City, UT. (Photo by Michael Hurcomb/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Sandy Phan
An electric excitement filled Filmmaker Lodge on January 24 as attendees were waiting for the doors to open at the Cinema Café. This was the first Beyond Film event for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, with a sold-out crowd eager to hear the speakers.
Cinema Café brings together artists from separate films in the Festival to have informal and thought-provoking conversations, away from the hubbub of premieres and red carpets. Today, Olivia Colman (Jimpa), Oscar- and BAFTA-winning actor, sits with Steven Yeun (Bubble & Squeak), Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe- and Emmy Award-winning actor and producer.
During the 45-minute event, the audience was mesmerized by Colman and Yeun’s down-to-earth advice on managing the “slow years” and their thoughts on awards. Interspersed throughout the chat was laughter and nodding heads from the audience as they settled into the discussion.
We’ve selected some of our favorite quotes from Colman and Yeun below. Be sure to catch Jimpa and Bubble & Squeak during the Festival, the latter of which is also available for viewers to watch online.
Yeun on why he wanted to make Bubble & Squeak:
“This is a weird answer, but I think when I read the script, it was something that I couldn’t really grasp. The script wasn’t incoherent, but I couldn’t understand it clearly. I think that that felt really affecting and correct for the time when I read it and even now. I was thinking about that feeling — fiction feels more like real life than real life does these days. And that’s what ultimately drew me to it.”
Colman on why she wanted to be in Jimpa:
“I’m going to steal John Lithgow’s line. It’s so infused with love — particularly at a time when it feels like you need more of it. It’s a very beautiful story about a family, love, and acceptance. It’s a story about three generations: a gay granddad, a straight daughter, and a nonbinary trans child. It’s all about how they are kind to each other, embracing and loving each other, and it’s marvelous.”
Yeun on working with collaborators and how he finds them:
“I don’t know if there is a rhyme or reason. Sometimes I feel I have a rhyme or reason, and I try to apply it to the next thing, and it doesn’t work at all. To me, it feels like sometimes a story pops up, and it’s like, ‘Hey, I think I need you,’ and I’m like, ‘Thank you so much!’ I feel fortunate to fall forward to these stories that present themselves. I’m not looking at a director or writer. It’s more if I’m interested in the story and if the people involved in the story are also interested in the story that way, then I’m excited.”
On winning awards:
Colman: “Getting an award is really nice. When I was younger, if my peers liked my work, then that was the dream. But no one should start out wanting to win awards or wanting to get famous. Once that’s happened, then you need to get back to your work.”
Yeun: “Awards are weird, but they’re awesome. The hard part that I have to rationalize to myself is that maybe this is a chain of events that has culminated in that moment where I’ve had the great fortune to receive the [award]. You know that you’re the product of multiple people and events that have led you to this thing. It’s hard to talk about it because it sounds unrealistic to say, ‘I didn’t earn this thing,’ or, ‘I don’t know if this is truly mine.’ It’s like a light bulb went off and a bunch of nodes connected to it made it happen. Honestly, I’m trying to receive those things with gratitude.”
Yeun on “falling forward”:
“Every time you feel like you’re in control, you’re humbled immediately that you’re not. I like reviewing myself. At times, it’s agonizing, and at other times, I have compassion for myself. And sometimes, there’s shame. But, largely, I’m trying to fall forward with a little more grace than I usually have.”
On managing focus and resilience during the “slow years”:
Yeun: “One piece of advice that I heard early in my career was to move every day with intention. Spiraling can paralyze you… I found that things would be slower when I was aiming at acting as opposed to living the life in preparation for a role that might find me… You get to a point where you can look back at your past and say, ‘I reject this trauma or these experiences that were painful for me,’ but then you realize all of that was necessary for this moment. It’s also a matter of perspective.”
Colman: “Now I’m grateful for the slow years. I feel like they gave me an appreciation to be very grateful that I was lucky in certain things. I know exactly what you mean when all you think about is the audition, but they don’t call back. I used to do auditions, and I would tell myself, ‘Well, that was fun, and I’m never going to hear back.’ You need to get on with the next bit of your day. It’s easy to say but not easy to do.”
What was the first project or experience in acting, and how did you feel with this experience?
Colman: “I did a school play when I was sixteen, having been rubbish with everything else in school, which was a plus because if you’re shit at everything, at least you can commit to acting! When people clapped, I thought, ‘My God, I love this!’ And I couldn’t do anything else.”
Yeun: “When I was in college, I remember seeing my school’s improv troupe my freshman year, and in hindsight, I think I can look back at that to be more existential in experience, whereas in that moment, I always wanted to do that cool thing. Seeing people being free enough not to calculate every part of their experience before they have it on stage was incredibly liberating to watch. I was like, I want to do that! I don’t know what that is or how to do that, but I have wanted that since that point; I’ve gone from there.”
