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
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.
The mainstream welcomes kung fu films - martial art films, right? So that's one type of Chinese-ness that's welcome.
The lowest budget U.S. films are ten times times better than shooting in Tibet.
I went on auditions for a movie called Year of the Dragon. I was pretty much fresh off the boat, and I had a little baby fat on me. I was a cute - really cute 22-year-old.
I went to California to study drama and study film, still with the goal of going back to China. I stayed for at least four years and then I visited China. I was a little lost. I was very homesick. I took a risk, I went back to China and realized that I have actually changed, that China as a whole wasn't what I imagined it to be.
I was always so anxious to do the right thing, politically righteous, socially acceptable. It wouldn't have been good. It wouldn't have suited my personality because there is so much complication I didn't understand as a kid.
If you don't talk about any commitment or a shared future in three months, I don't think you're sincere.
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.
From the age of 14 I was on the set all the time and worked with a lot of people.
I think what's the most important thing for any mother is whether or not my children are going to be happy. My interpretation of that really is your fierce and savage love for your children. All motherly love is really without reason and logic. It's totally savage and that's an act out of love.