SPOILERS are ahead for Joy Ride, now playing in theaters.
Regrettable tattoos are just too fun of a concept for comedies not to explore every once in a while. Remember when Ed Helms’ The Hangover character got a Mike Tyson tattoo? Sure, it caused an entire copyright lawsuit, but it was a hilarious bit. Well, now Joy Ride takes the cake on tattoo jokes, and star Stephanie Hsu had a bit of an emotional journey knowing that her character would have it in the movie.
The Everything, Everywhere All At Once Oscar nominee plays Kat, an old college friend to Ashley Park’s Audrey, who is the star of a Chinese TV show and even engaged to her co-star. But best friends know each other’s deepest and darkest secrets, and Audrey lets slip to the group traveling with her that she has a vagina tattoo. It’s a piece of information that endlessly entertains Audrey’s other best friend Lolo, as she imagines what it could possibly look like. Later in the film, when the group cover Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” in an effort to travel out of China without passports, Kat’s tattoo accidentally is revealed not only to the group of friends, but to the world via livestream. It’s a tattoo of a devil that doesn’t stop on the outside of her body.
When CinemaBlend sat down with Stephanie Hsu during the Los Angeles press day for Joy Ride, she shared her reaction to learning of the tattoo. In her words:
I almost wish I had thought about it more because I just, I had no perception. Sometimes I make things and I just don’t realize how widespread it becomes. And so, when I read it I was like, ‘Oh, that’s so funny. Of course. Duh, hilarious, unhinged’. And then all of a sudden we wrapped shooting, or even maybe when we were filming it and I met my body double and I saw the artwork on her body and I was like, ‘Wow, we’re really doing this, this is pretty wild.’ But now I honestly feel like it, it just is such an amazing reveal and it’s so satisfying and it’s so fun. So, I feel happy for it.
As one might expect, the actress has a good sense of humor about the whole thing. While she shared that she does wish she thought it through a bit more looking back, and it really didn’t click for her until she saw the tattoo in real life as modeled by a body double in the movie. It’s such a random scene for Joy Ride, and the fact that it exists in the movie is rather jaw-dropping and graphic. We’re not surprised that the actress had a tad of trepidation for the whole thing, but as she said, it’s a seriously “amazing reveal” that has had tons of theaters exploding with laughters about it.
Stephanie Hsu just came off a huge year thanks to Everything, Everywhere All At Once’s success. The indie movie earned Best Picture at the 2023 Oscars among seven wins across its 11 nominations, including a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Hsu. Critics are also loving Joy Ride (check out CinemaBlend’s Joy Ride review). Check out the movie in theaters now.