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 going back to work in China. Chinese movies are getting very very strong now. I'm going back in December to work on a movie based on a classical novel. I play a woman who loves decadence.
I've received e-mails telling me about the protests ... friends who have gone back to work for American firms ... they are very, very worried and a little scared, ... I am a little scared. Every time tension like that builds up, I feel like I am not trusted by the Americans. I'm not trusted by the Chinese. I'm not trusted by anybody.
The factory that I work with, all the products are on the shelf, they are existing products. I can go and enhance it. The perfume is 60% mine.
From the age of 14 I was on the set all the time and worked with a lot of people.
I worked a year in L.A. That was... a treat.
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.
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.
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.
If my publicist says you have to be a certain way, I say, Yeah, okay. That's the way the public likes to perceive me. It's all fine, that's part of the business.
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.
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.
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.