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
I submitted the script and they gave me a list of changes to make, and I did not agree with the changes.
I read a lot. On location that's all I do. I've been reading very many different books. I used to follow writers, and whatever book they wrote, I would go buy right away.
Even a year ago I was talking about going to law school. Because the lawyers I know get to meet a lot of different people.
The author wrote the novella based on her friend. So it was a true story, ... When I was reading the novella -- she wrote it in such a visual, well-textured way, that I saw in it a poignantly beautiful film. And that is how my generation in China came of age.
Things had just happened to me, good things and bad things, and I took them.
All my girlfriends were learning musical instruments - forced to learn musical instruments because if they knew a musical instrument, they would be in the performance troupe. Even if they were sent down. Then they wouldn't be in the fields. Then they'd probably be treated a little better. That was the hope.
Dailies means every day you have 20 rolls, and here I was with 200 rolls of film.
I sort of stopped acting for about five or six years. I was at this awkward age. I felt that now that I am no longer young, my acting career is over. And so I sort of put myself in the wine cellar and I aged for like five, six years and now I'm uncorked and it was pretty good. It was the right taste.
I wanted to do pre-med. The first semester it really didn't matter because you took a lot of general education requirements. But right after the first semester I kind of knew I wasn't cut out for that. I had very good grades but I somehow wasn't satisfied. Just having good grades and having it all go to medical school didn't make me happy.
Now I have a family. I have a real home, a place I really want to come back to. I get really homesick before because there wasn't much to be missed.
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.
You want actors to give you the essence of drama-not only the gift of their instincts and knowledge but the greater gift of themselves. When that happens, it's gold-and when you want to catch that, you don't go through all sorts of fancy camera movements to play director.
The mainstream welcomes kung fu films - martial art films, right? So that's one type of Chinese-ness that's welcome.
The lowest budget U.S. films are ten times times better than shooting in Tibet.