Chinese-American actress Joan Chen on becoming a film star, working on Twin Peaks and The Last Emperor, and ageism in the industry
- Joan Chen had modest ambitions as a child growing up in China, and never imagined she’d grow up to become a famous and award-winning film star
- She talks about her life in cinema, and describes working with directors such as David Lynch, Ang Lee and Bernardo Bertolucci
Chinese-American star Joan Chen never thought she would be an actress. As a young girl growing up in China, she dreamed of a career where she would get to wear a uniform.
“Something like the army, navy or air force would have been the ultimate career,” says Chen, speaking in Hong Kong this month at a lecture series at the M+ museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be an actress.”
Chen’s performance in Red Rose and White Rose won her best actress at the 1994 Hong Kong Critics’ Awards and Taiwan Golden Horse Awards. In 2007 she collected another Golden Horse, for best leading actress, for her role in The Home Song Stories.
Scouted as a 14-year-old girl in Shanghai, Chen’s path could have been very different. “I remember thinking that if I could leave high school then I wouldn’t be assigned to the countryside far away. At that time, students were being sent down to remote areas.”
In the 1960s and ’70s, during the Cultural Revolution, millions of young Chinese, known as sent-down youth, were consigned to the countryside to undergo “re-education”.
Instead, Chen soared on the screen, including winning best actress at the Hundred Flowers Awards – China’s equivalent of the Oscars – for her role in Little Flower (1977).
