Paul Feig directs and produces Jackpot!, which stars Awkwafina as Katie Kim. The new movie is officially streaming now on Prime Video.

In the near future, a ‘Grand Lottery’ has been newly established in California – the catch: kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot. When Katie Kim (Awkwafina) moves to Los Angeles, she mistakenly finds herself with the winning ticket. Desperate to survive the hordes of jackpot hunters, she reluctantly joins forces with amateur lottery protection agent Noel Cassidy (John Cena) who will do everything in his power to get her to sundown in exchange for a piece of her prize. However, Noel must face off with his slick rival Louis Lewis (Simu Liu), who also seeks to collect Katie’s commission at all costs. 

“For me, it’s balancing the tone. Everything can be crazy, but the people in the middle of it have to be treating it very seriously and have to be reacting, even if they’re reacting in a funny way, in a way that we and the audience go like, ‘Oh, I’d be doing the same thing,'” Feig explained. “That’s what I like about this, it’s a very empathetic movie because you as the audience go like, ‘Oh, if that happened to me, what would I do?'”

Awkwafina reflected on her takeaway from the project, sharing, “Related to the film, living in that dystopic kind of environment, and even in the movie, it makes you think a little bit, you know? Like, when you’re really thrust into that environment and thinking about your own career and Hollywood in general but then also, definitely the good in people as well.”

We discussed which of their past characters would be Katie’s greatest ally and enemy, finding the perfect balance of action and comedy, what they each took away from the film, and more.

Watch my interview below: