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'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.
There are a few stories that I like, but I don't know how to approach them because there's no part for me-just books I read.
When I was younger, I struggled against, you know, I don't want to be pigeon-holed. And I, you know - Basically, now you want to be pigeon-holed. It's your niche.
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.
Black people are doing a lot better lately. They're getting a lot more better roles and they have fought for a long time.
When I stayed with a bunch of herding girls-young intellectuals sent down to herd military horses-they taught me how to take warm baths.
Both my parents are very hard-working, very caring, studious people. They take their profession very very seriously. Especially in China, there is not much of a reward other than saving lives. So I have a very very high respect for the profession of medicine. That could be a subconscious reason.
I did somehow manage to get into a college in China that trains diplomats when I was 17, one year before my peers could go, which is very very difficult. I was very proud I did.
I don't believe beauty exists without suffering-that's just a tourist picture in a travel agency, which isn't beautiful to me.
Only when you poeticize something does it become universal. I believe when your experience is more crystallized through distance and time, you're more able to poeticize something.
There are only so many roles as empresses... but I've had a lot of offers to play vampires.
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 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.
Relatively speaking, I was a lot more naive than kids today.