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 very much avoid crowds even today. Crowds scare me. I function much better on a more personal level. I don't function very well on a dinner of more than ten. I can't be myself.
Things had just happened to me, good things and bad things, and I took them.
I wish I could spend a little more time with friends. That's one bad thing, because I'm not so reliable as a friend other than getting me on the phone.
I don't believe beauty exists without suffering-that's just a tourist picture in a travel agency, which isn't beautiful to me.
Black people are doing a lot better lately. They're getting a lot more better roles and they have fought for a long time.
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.
If you don't talk about any commitment or a shared future in three months, I don't think you're sincere.
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.
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.
We were so up high that we were really close to heaven, and that does render greater meaning to life.
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.
To be an Asian, to be a minority, not to see ourselves as always me the minority, the victim, you the dominant culture. It's a shift of paradigm. Once you see things differently, you gain power. All of a sudden there is enlightenment.
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.