Joan Chen


Joan Chen is a Chinese-born American actress and film director. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including four Taipei Golden Horse Awards and an AACTA [Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role|AACTA Award]. She made her film debut in the Chinese film Youth before starring in the film . She came to the attention of American audiences for her portrayal of Wanrong in the Bernardo Bertolucci historical epic film The Last Emperor, which won nine Academy Awards including Best Picture.
She is also known for her leading roles in Heaven & Earth, Golden Gate, Red Rose White Rose, Saving Face, Sunflower, and The Home Song Stories with supporting roles in Lust, Caution, Tigertail, and Dìdi. As a filmmaker she directed the feature films Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, Autumn in New York, English and Hero.
On television, she is most known for her recurring role as Jocelyn 'Josie' Packard in the David Lynch created surrealist drama series Twin Peaks. She also portrayed Madame Chiang Kai-shek in the HBO film Hemingway & Gellhorn, Chabi in the Netflix series Marco Polo and Lu Mei in the FX on Hulu series A Murder at the End of the World.

Early life

Chen was born in Shanghai, to a family of pharmacologists. She and her older brother, Chase, were raised during the Cultural Revolution. At the age of 14, Chen was discovered on the school rifle range by Jiang Qing, the wife of leader Mao Zedong and major Chinese Communist Party figure, for excelling at marksmanship. This led to her being selected for the Actors' Training Program by the Shanghai Film Studio in 1975, where she was discovered by veteran director Xie Jin who chose her to star in his 1977 film as a deaf mute whose senses are restored by an army medical team. Chen graduated from high school a year in advance, and at the age of 17 entered Shanghai International Studies University, where she majored in English.

Career

1979–1984: Early career in China

Chen performed alongside Liu Xiaoqing, Tang Guoqiang and Ge Cunzhuang in Zhang Zheng's in 1979, for which she won the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress. Chen portrayed a pre-Maoist revolutionary's daughter, who, reunited with her brother, a wounded Communist soldier, later learned that his doctor was her biological mother. Little Flower was her second film and she soon achieved the status of China's most-loved actress; she was dubbed "the Elizabeth Taylor of China" by Time magazine for having achieved stardom while still a teenager.
In addition, Chen was in the 1979 film. The film directed by Ou Fan and Xing Jitian depicts an overseas Chinese family that returns to China from Southeast Asia out of their patriotic feelings but encounter political troubles during the Cultural Revolution. The songs, "I Love You, China" and "High Flies the Petrel", sung by Chen's character, are perennial favorites in China. In 1981, Chen starred in Awakening, directed by.

1985–1999: Hollywood and ''Twin Peaks''

At age 20, Chen moved to the United States, where she studied filmmaking at California State University, Northridge. Her first Hollywood movie was Tai-Pan, filmed on location in China. In 1985, she appeared in the American television show Miami Vice as May Ying, former wife of Martin Castillo and husband to Ma Sek in the episode "Golden Triangle (Part II)". She went on to portray the Last Empress Wanrong in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which won 9 Academy Awards in 1988, including Best Picture. She then starred in the David Lynch/Mark Frost television series Twin Peaks as Josie Packard. She starred alongside Rutger Hauer in 1989's The Blood of Heroes, written and directed by David Webb Peoples. In 1993, she co-starred in Oliver Stone's Heaven & Earth. She portrayed two different characters in Clara Law's Temptation of a Monk: a seductive princess of Tang dynasty, and a dangerous temptress. She shaved her head on-screen for the role. The award-winning film was adapted from a novel by Lilian Lee.
In 1994, she co-starred with Steven Seagal in the action-adventure On Deadly Ground. She also returned to Shanghai to star in Stanley Kwan's Red Rose White Rose opposite Winston Chao, and subsequently won a Golden Horse Award and a Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award for her performance. In 1996, she served as a jury member at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival.
Tired of being cast as an exotic beauty in Hollywood films, Chen moved into directing in 1998 with the critically acclaimed Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, adapted from the novella Celestial Bath by her friend Geling Yan. She later directed Autumn in New York, starring Richard Gere and Winona Ryder, in 2000.

2000–present: International acclaim

In the middle of the 2000s, Chen made a comeback in acting and began to work intensely, alternating between English and Chinese-language roles. In 2004, she starred in Hou Yong's family saga Jasmine Women, alongside Zhang Ziyi, in which they played multiple roles as daughters and mothers across three generations in Shanghai. She also starred in the Asian-American comedy Saving Face as a widowed mother, who is shunned by the Chinese-American community for being pregnant and unwed and has come to live with her lesbian daughter. In 2005, she appeared in Zhang Yang's family saga Sunflower, as a mother whose husband and son have a troubled father-son relationship over 30 years. She starred in the Asian American independent film Americanese and in Michael Almereyda's Tonight at Noon, the first part of a two part project, scheduled to be released in 2009.
In 2007, Chen was acclaimed for her performance in Tony Ayres' drama The Home Song Stories. She portrayed a glamorous and unstable Chinese nightclub singer who struggles to survive in 1970s Australia with her two children. The performance earned her multiple awards, including the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress and the Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actress. The same year saw her co-starring in two other acclaimed films: Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, opposite Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, and Jiang Wen's The [Sun Also Rises (2007 film)|The Sun Also Rises], opposite Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, for which she received the Asian Film Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2008, she starred alongside Sam Chow in Shi Qi, directed by Joe Chow, as a rural mother of a 17-year-old in eastern Zhejiang province. The same year Joan Chen portrayed a factory worker in Jia Zhangke's 24 City once fancied because she resembled Chen herself in the 1979 film Little Flower, but who missed her chance at love. She co-starred in Bruce Beresford's 2009 adaptation of the autobiography of dancer Li Cunxin, Mao's Last Dancer, along with Wang Shuangbao and Kyle MacLachlan.
In 2009, Chen starred alongside Feng Yuanzheng and in the Chinese TV series Newcomers to the Middle-Aged, directed by Dou Qi, in which she played a female doctor facing middle-age problems. She also played the part of goddess Guan Yin in the 2010 Chinese TV adaptation of Journey to the West, directed by Cheng Lidong. In October 2009 Joan Chen was the curator of the first Singapore Sun Festival, whose theme was "The Art of Living Well". She selected five films for screening during the festival: The [Diving Bell and the Butterfly (film)|The Diving Bell and the Butterfly], Dead Man Walking, Hannah and Her Sisters, Still Life and Edward Scissorhands.
In 2010, Chen joined the cast of Wang Leehom's directorial debut Love in Disguise, Alexi Tan's Color Me Love, Ilkka Järvi-Laturi's Kiss, His First and veteran acting coach Larry Moss' Relative Insanity. In May 2010, she was set to star and direct one of the three parts of the anthology film Seeing Red. In 2011, Chen played Secretary Bishop's girlfriend on the television series Fringe episode "Immortality". Chen was cast as the Mongol Yuan Dynasty empress Chabi in the 2014 American television series Marco Polo. Being somewhat unfamiliar with the Mongols, Chen read The Secret History of the Mongol Queens in order to prepare for the role. She also appeared in several episodes of the 2018 Chinese television drama Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace as Ula Nara Yixiu.
In 2014, Chen served as a jury member at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. In the same year, Chen presided over the jury for the 51st Golden Horse Awards. In 2023 she played a caring and compassionate mother to a rebellious teenager in the coming of age comedy-drama Dìdi directed by Sean Wang. Angi Han of The Hollywood Reporter wrote of her performance, that the "role often trusts her remarkable ability to convey a lifetime’s worth of regret or joy or swallowed anger through a simple gaze". For her performance she was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Performance.

Personal life

In 1981, Chen left China to study at the State [University of New York at New Paltz], before transferring to the California State University, Northridge.
From 1985 to 1990, Chen was married to actor Jim "Jimmy" Lau.
In 1989, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
On January 18, 1992, Chen married her second husband, cardiologist Peter Hui. They have two daughters. They live in San Francisco, California.
On April 9, 2008, Chen wrote an article entitled "Let the Games Go On" for The Washington Post objecting to the politicization of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Charitable work

In May 2008, Chen appeared alongside James Kyson Lee, Silas Flensted, and Amy Hanaialiʻi Gilliom in a public service announcement for the Banyan Tree Project campaign to stop HIV/AIDS-related stigma in Asian & Pacific Islander communities.
In October 2008, Chen made the cover of Trends Health magazine alongside actresses Ke Lan and Ma Yili to promote the Chinese Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer Prevention campaign.
On January 8, 2010, Chen attended, alongside Nancy Pelosi, Nicole Kidman, and Joe Torre, the ceremony to help Family Violence Prevention Fund break ground on a new center located in the Presidio of San Francisco intended to combat violence against women and children. During the ceremony, Chen performed an excerpt from the documentary play The Thumbprint of Mukhtar Mai.
On January 15, 2010, Chen was set to appear, along with other Asian American personalities, in a series of videos supporting the Center for the Pacific Asian Family.

Other media

  • 2008: "Shanghai," narrator—an audio walking tour by Louis Vuitton and Soundwalk

Other recognition

  • Chen was named one of the "Fifty Most Beautiful People" by People magazine in 1992.
  • Chen inspired the American experimental rock band Xiu Xiu, named after her film Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, according to singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart.
  • Chen was chosen by Goldsea as Number 45 on its compilation of "The 120 Most Inspiring Asian Americans of All Time".

Articles and interviews

  • "The Last Empress", by C. Mark Jacobson. Interview. December 1987. p. 146-147.
  • "In Praise of Actors: Joan Chen", by Peter Rainer. American Film. Volume 15: Issue 8. May 1990. p. 32.
  • , by Tom Kagy. Goldsea Asian American Daily. August 1992.
  • "Chen Reaction", by Alison Dakota Gee. Movieline. December 1993. p. 54-59, 88.
  • , by Richard Corliss. TIME. April 5, 1999.
  • , by Richard Corliss. TIME. Volume 153: Issue 13. April 5, 1999.
  • , by Michael Sragow. Salon.com. May 27, 1999.
  • "Reel Poetry", by Kevin Berger. San Francisco. July 2000. p. 51.
  • , by Franz Lidz. Interview. August 2000. p. 80-81.
  • , by Michelle Caswell. Asia Source. November 2000.Goldsea Asian American Daily. January 28, 2003.
  • , by Malinda Lo. Curve. Volume 15: Issue 4. June 2005.
  • , by Kenny Tanemura. Asian Week. June 3, 2005.
  • "Sensuously Elegant: An Interview with Joan Chen", by Lisa Odham Stokes. Asian Cult Cinema. Issue 48. October–December 2005. p. 51-61.
  • , by Glen Schaefer. The Province. October 3, 2007.