In the 2008 world of DÌDI 弟弟, 13-year-old Chris Wang (Izaac Wang) watches how-to tutorials on YouTube, gets into screaming matches with his sister at the dinner table, makes goofy videos with his friends, scours Myspace, rolls his eyes at his mom, texts his crush on AIM for the first time. The new film, whose title comes from the affectionate term in Mandarin for “little brother,” captures the nostalgia of the late aughts alongside the timeless essence of growing up as a teenager.

16-year-old Izaac Wang stars in his first headline role as Chris, an impressionable Taiwanese-American teen skating through his last summer before high school, learning things his mom can’t teach him. The 13-year-old searches for an identity, code-switching to fit into each social circle. He is known as “Wang-Wang” to his multicultural childhood friends, “Half-Asian Chris” to his older non-Asian skater buddies, and “Dìdi” to his family. However, Chris is too preoccupied with impressing his crush Madi (Mahaela Park) by wearing Paramore t-shirt that belongs to his sister and referencing A Walk to Remember (which he’s never seen) to appreciate his loving immigrant mother Chungsing (Joan Chen). The film, written and directed by Academy Award nominee Sean Wang, is a heartfelt tribute to the complex, cringy nature of adolescence and what it means to grow up Asian American.

Hailing from Minnesota and now a Los Angeles local, Chinese-Laotian American actor Izaac Wang has previously appeared in Clifford the Big Red Dog, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Good Boys. Teen Vogue sat down with Wang to chat about identity, growing up, and Spotify character playlists.

Teen Vogue: Congratulations on DÌDI winning the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and Special Jury Award for ensemble. What was your reaction when you heard the well-deserved news?

Izaac Wang: Sean’s [Instagram] story of this BTS photo that’s pretty funny was my reaction to being accepted into Sundance. Winning was completely different. Winning was kind of crazy. When we won, I was super excited. I saw people messaging me like, “Holy crap we won at Sundance!” Sean was super excited, all my cast members were super excited, I was super excited. It was just a huge thing. Everyone was super proud of each other. And then we finally started to figure out, Holy crap, this movie’s probably gonna be insane. That was probably the best moment of knowing that we won Sundance.

TV: You were born in Minnesota and started acting at an early age. Can you tell me about your childhood and what drew you to acting?

IW: I was born in Minnesota, I was only raised there for three years. I moved [to LA] when I was three years old, so I’ve basically grown up in LA. [In] my childhood, [I] was a relatively imaginative person. I used to love playing with stuffed animals. I still do play with stuffed animals. That helped me to make creative worlds in my head.

Me being an actor was completely coincidental. It wasn’t something I put myself into, but it was actually my parents. It was only because my dad [who owns a pharmacy] had this [customer] who was always running in and out of his workplace. He was like, “Oh, what do you do for a living?” And she was like, “Oh, I’m a kid’s talent manager.” And he was like, “Oh, can I just like give my kid to you?” And she’s like, “Yeah sure.” And that’s how it all started and now I’m an actor. My first role was for this My Little Pony commercial. I was like eight or nine years old. It being my first time and me being eight through nine years old, I was pretty immature. Definitely not the most mature actor of all time. I’m still pretty immature now, but definitely not as immature as I used to be.

TV: As a teen actor, how do you balance school responsibilities and your acting career?

IW: It’s pretty difficult. I’d say probably it’s easier at, like, a normal public school. The school I’m attending is LACHSA (Los Angeles County High School for the Arts). So it’s a weirder mix of arts and normal academics. There’s been times where my school has been strict with me being away from school, specifically with DÌDI. And especially if you’re away from school for a long time for shooting, your grades tend to go down because you’re not attending classes every day, so that’s also more difficult. But it’s not the worst thing ever. If you’re not working and just doing self-tapes and auditions, there’s a little bit more [time] in your schedule. But besides that, it’s not too terrible.