Gemma Chan
Gemma Chan
Gemma Chan is a British film, television and theatre actress and former fashion model. She portrays Charlotte in season four of the Showtime and ITV2 series Secret Diary of a Call Girl; Ruth in Channel 4's Fresh Meat; Mia Bennett in the BBC's Doctor Who "The Waters of Mars" and Soo Lin in Sherlock, She also appeared in Exam and Paramount Pictures' action-thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. She stars in Humans, an AMC/Channel 4 eight-part science-fiction drama, which premiered in...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionTV Actress
Date of Birth29 November 1982
CityLondon, England
As a means to an end, modelling was good, but I had to distance myself from it when I started working as an actress, because even though I wasn't high-profile, I found in my first write-ups that I'd be referred to as 'model Gemma Chan.'
At one point I wanted to work for NASA and be an astrophysicist, so I did physics, math, and chemistry before realizing I probably wasn't quite smart enough to do that. But I am still hugely interested in cosmology and astrophysics. That is my geeky subject area.
If you find something you are passionate about, you've got to try. Even if something doesn't quite work out, disappointment is a temporary thing. Regret lasts forever.
I ended up doing a local AmDram musical when I was nine or so. We had to sing and dance and act. It was probably terrible, but I loved it.
I'm quite a rational person. I'm not very superstitious, but I really do enjoy horror as a genre.
I haven't always wanted to be an actor, no. I wasn't one of the little kids that was desperate to be an actor. I did a lot of drama and a lot of music, but it was just something for fun on the side. I was quite shy as a kid and I found a lot of freedom in performing. I never knew you could do it as a job.
Making a pretty picture, an image, is a completely different thing from acting to camera.
My parents are wonderful, practical, sensible people, and the expectation was that I would study something academic.
Even though I don't necessarily believe in everything that's supernatural, I like being scared and I like things that are suspenseful.