Joan Chen
Joan Chen
Joan Chenis a Chinese-American actress, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. In China she performed in the 1979 film Little Flower and came to international attention for her performance in the 1987 Academy Award-winning film The Last Emperor. She is also known for her roles in Twin Peaks, Red Rose, White Rose, Saving Face and The Home Song Stories, and for directing the feature film Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl...
NationalityChinese
ProfessionActress
Date of Birth26 April 1961
CountryChina
Ma's world is so narrow, ... She's always been an appendage of someone else. That's how her father brought her up. So you ache for her to experience life ... to become liberated, emancipated.
I won't ever encourage this temptress to grow. I don't give her any opportunity in my life, but I'm sure it's there. I understand her.
I wish I could spend a little more time with friends. That's one bad thing, because I'm not so reliable as a friend other than getting me on the phone.
I wish when I was younger, I took my career more seriously. I wasn't. I was just, like, having a good time.
I worked a year in L.A. That was... a treat.
I wasn't good enough to be a waitress. I was a receptionist and I only took down takeouts. Every day there was some mistake I made.
My brother is a brilliant artist. His oil paintings are really beautiful. And he was the one that taught me what to see - how to see. Colors, lights. And how lights can be so musical.
We were so up high that we were really close to heaven, and that does render greater meaning to life.
Having been an actress was also good because I know how to talk to the actors. I know what comes through and what doesn't and often times I've worked with a director whose directions I knew I'd just better not try to listen to because it messes you up. So, having had an acting background really helped.
The acting in China is very stylized and dramatic, and I was just me.
The army was a desirable place to be. It offered a more disciplined life than the countryside.
I am not the best girlfriend or lawyer or the reporter. I am the drama-queen type. You know. So it is somehow in my style, in my upbringing, in the way I look: I need to be the dramatic one.
The young people, they don't knock on the door politely and say "May I come in?" They barge in, they take your seat, and you're obsolete unless you recreate and somehow find grace somewhere else. Another profession may not be like that.
I miss directing. I see stories in images and music more so than in dialogue.