How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (Lahn Mah) by Pat Boonnitipat has become a sleeper hit across the world. The Thai dramatic-comedy about a young slacker and his no-nonsense grandmother who live together when she becomes ill is arch, warm, exasperating and tender – just like M. and his Umah.

Starring Putthipong ‘Billkin’ Assaratanakul as M. and first-time actor Usha Seamkhum as Umah, the chemistry between the two leads is adorable.
Nadine Whitney speaks to Pat about making a film that becomes “first in your heart.”
Nadine Whitney: Hello Pat. The first question I need to ask you involves changing mediums. You’ve worked a lot in television, but this is your debut feature. How is it going across into feature filmmaking?
Pat Boonnitipat: Working in television is such a really long process and I got to experiment with so many things in production. So, when it comes to feature film, which is shorter, as a filmmaker, you want to try this and that. You want to show you were inspired by so many great filmmakers, and you want to do it like them. But I actually did much of that while making the TV series. So, when I made the feature film, it wasn’t as much about trying to be like someone else, but just trying to really get to the story and tell it in the way that it enhanced your story.
Nadine Whitney: You have a very famous Thai pop star in the film with Billkin. I didn’t realize quite how popular he was until I put my review of the movie up on some social media. Putthipong ‘Billkin’ Assaratanakul is a terrific actor. Can you tell me about getting him to channel the comedic energy, the slacker energy, and the heartfelt energy of M. into the the role.
Pat Boonnitipat: Billkin is a very lovely guy himself. He’s a very lovely person. He always likes to just tease people exactly like M. does in the movie. It came out pretty naturally for him to perform that way. The comedy scenes and with all the jokes, I think it just happened seamlessly, because he and Usha Seamkhum were really close during workshopping. When we were on set together, he was a joker. During the shoot, he teased Usaha. Behind the camera and on the camera is the same energy.
Nadine Whitney: I cannot believe that How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is Usha Seamkhum’s first role. She is astonishing. I laughed with her, I cried with her, I felt angry for her, I felt everything!
I ran through this mix of emotions through the entire process. At one stage, I was giggling uncontrollably. At other times I was sobbing. At other times I was furious. That is a sign of accomplished filmmaking
Can you tell me about directing Usha Seamkhum, as this is her screen debut.
Pat Boonnitipat: Usha Seamkhum is really talented. She’s gifted in the way that she didn’t have any pre-concept of acting but she somehow could just understand the character.
Grandma’s character in the movie is quite the opposite of her own personality. She’s very kind, she’s very lovely, and she loves to hug everybody. She always says, “Oh, I love you. You’re so cute and you’re so lovely. Thank you so much!” But the grandmother in the movie is quite the opposite. She keeps things inside herself. When Usha understood Amah, she could just be her.
What is truly gifted about her is that she’s very open and she and she could believe that Billikin, the main actor, is actually her own grandkid. In that way, she really loved him, and that’s how she could perform so well.

Nadine Whitney: Can you tell me a bit about building the roles of the siblings, Umah’s children.
Pat Boonnitipat: I grew up in a house that also had a lot of the middle generation. It would be my mother, my uncles, my aunts, and that generation. But the one who cooked for us and took care of us children was the grandmother. The middle generation would go to work, and then they would come back and take us on holidays and things like that. The majority of the decisions made in the house were done by the middle generation.
The genesis of the story is about the grandson and the grandmother. But I think that from my experience, the middle generation plays a very important role in the dynamic between what’s going to happen next for the people who live in the house.
Nadine Whitney: M’s mother Sew is one of the few characters who just wants to hang out with her own mother because she loves her. I think that is one of the more beautiful aspects of the film. I don’t think that Sew wants anything material at all.
M., from his time with Amah, learns that he has a mother to hang out with and he should spend time with her. There is another generation coming, too. Rainbow the daughter of Amah’s eldest son who M. can teach too. A lovely passing on of tradition of caring.
Pat Boonnitipat: Well, thank you. That’s beautiful.
Nadine Whitney: Can you tell me what it is like to know audiences across the world are seeing your film?
Pat Boonnitipat: I didn’t expect it. Me and the scriptwriter Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn were just trying our best to tell the story. It’s very difficult for Thai film to travel internationally. We were just more than happy if it did well in our own countries.
What I experienced from the reaction that I got from audiences around the world is surprising. It’s quite common that they are touched by the characters, and many scenes.
Nadine Whitney: You have touched an array of people with the work. There is a universality in the work, because many of us understand generational differences and how our parents and grandparents were each put into situations that we didn’t necessarily understand.
Pat Boonnitipat: Thank you so much for telling me this. Thank you so much.

Nadine Whitney: I can only think of one other Thai drama and comedy film that has had the kind of international breakthrough that How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, and that’s Bad Genius. You worked on the television series of Bad Genius, and it’s recently just been remade as an American film. Have you seen that?
Pat Boonnitipat: I haven’t seen the American version yet.
The movie is very, very popular, like it got remade in America and in China it is very popular in as the box office wise. But the TV series, it’s quite popular in Thailand, and also in a few Southeast Asian countries for example, Indonesia, and a little bit in Malaysia, but in China, not so much.
How did you build the dynamics between the characters?
Pat Boonnitipat: The chemistry is like my chemistry between me and my grandmother. Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn wrote the character of Amah first. She is based on Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn’s grandmother because she sold congee like Amah does in the movie.
When it came to directing, because his grandmother already passed away, and I didn’t have a chance to meet her, I tried to construct the character based on my own grandmother because she’s the one I know best.
I love the way that my grandmother is always so chill about things that I’m so frustrated about, but at the same time, she could be so specific, very specific with things I’m so careless about. Her humor is exceptional, and her way of seeing the world.
Nadine Whitney: The film is “number one in my heart”. Amah and M. get to be number one in my heart. Sew gets to be number one in my heart. I think you’ve done a beautiful, beautiful job. Is there anything you’d like to say before we go?
Pat Boonnitipat: You made my day. Thank you so much. Thank you for your kind words. I’m so lucky to be able to talk to you. Thank you.
Nadine Whitney: You’re very welcome. Anything you would like to say to the wider audience out in the world?
Pat Boonnitipat: I just wish they have a good time. I mean, they don’t have to watch the film. I would just wish they have a good time in their life.
Nadine Whitney: That’s a beautiful thing to say. You are a wonderful person, Pat.
Pat Boonnitipat: Thank you so much. You’re so kind. Thank you so much.
How To Make Millions Before Grandman Dies is a 2024 Thai comedy-drama film directed by Pat Boonnitipat, co-written by Pat and Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn, and starring Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul and Usha “Taew” Seamkhum in their debut feature film roles. In the film, a university dropout low on money volunteers to take care of his terminally ill grandmother in the hope of pocketing an inheritance. It is available to rent on VOD