The upcoming film adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians is based on Kevin Kwan’s bestselling 2013 novel, which tells the story of a Chinese-American woman who travels back to Asia to meet her boyfriend’s ultra-rich family and friends—a quintessential Asian-American immigrant experience that, naturally, Hollywood attempted to whitewash. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Kwan said that even before the book was published, he was approached by a producer who asked him to consider reimagining the protagonist, Rachel (played by Constance Wu), as a white woman. “That was their strategy,” Kwan said. “They wanted to change the heroine into a white girl. I was like, ‘Well, you’ve missed the point completely.’ I said, ‘No, thank you.’”

Kwan wasn’t surprised by the suggestion, as Hollywood has a long history of whitewashing Asian characters. But in this case, making the main character white would undercut the film’s central storyline. On her trip, Rachel goes through reverse culture shock, a common ordeal for immigrants (or their children) who leave their native countries at an early age and return, only to feel out of place in a society that’s supposed to feel like home. In Crazy Rich Asians, Rachel must grapple with the added complication of trying to fit in with a family that’s, well, crazy rich.

Luckily the right producer and studio convinced Kwan that audiences would respond to a story featuring main characters who weren’t white. He remembered a moment at a book club in Texas full of white women who were appalled at the whitewashing story. “You should’ve heard them scream,” he said. “They were like, ‘Nooo!’ I remember one woman saying, ‘What makes these people think that all we want to do is see the same white actors or actresses on screen?’ To hear that reaction really confirmed for me what the audience wanted.”

In the end, Kwan chose The Hunger Games producer Nina Jacobson and her producing partner, Brad Simpson, to give his book the movie treatment. “[Nina] felt it was really important to tell the story and to have this message and to have that representation out there,” Kwan said. “That was in 2013, way before the whole Hollywood whitewashing movement happened.” Now, after seeing the anti-whitewashing movement hit its stride, Kwan is hopeful for the future. “I had one of the top producers in Hollywood come to me wanting to make this movie and wanting to do it right, so I think the culture is shifting,” he said. “They’re seeing the importance of this.”