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 don't find intimate scenes more difficult than other scenes.
How do you explain certain physical qualities that somehow sell on screen? You're born with it... Certain people are just more watchable, and I was more watchable, but I don't think I understood acting or drama very well when I was a kid.
Not very many companies go through Hawaii on their way to anywhere. San Francisco Ballet was the only company I remember, and Bolshoi, coming through Hawaii when I was younger.
I don't want to tell people what I make. It's a lot more than I ever dreamed of as a kid. I never think about it.
Since age 14, I know what actors fear, what they like; I know how to get things out of them and I listen to them better, since I've been there.
The beauty in the story is at one with suffering. That is also part of our upbringing - we don't think there could be beauty otherwise. Beauty is the result of having been through an experience all the way through to the end - therefore it has a poignancy. Beauty that is singular always comes from following an experience to the point where you can go no further.
I grew up in Honolulu. It's not the ballet cultural mecca by any stretch of the imagination. People are much more familiar with hula than they are with ballet.
I was frustrated. I was doing some bad movies, movies that I knew going in were not going to be great.
When you feel so strongly about something and other people feel equally strongly, you have to feel stronger about it in order to succeed.
The romantic love we feel toward the opposite sex is probably one extra help from God to bring you together, but that's it. All the rest of it, the true love, is the test.
I'm sure I had a certain presence. It just happened. I didn't have too big of a problem with it because my family grounded me very well and I didn't understand what fame is and the corruption that fame could bring. I was too naive. I was very much a kid. I believed that people just loved me.
In China we use the word baptism a lot, it's a very revolutionary word.
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.
You have to say, I will wither if I don't do it, I'll die if I don't do it. It has to be that big of a determination, that much of a need.