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 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.
My brother is a brilliant artist. His oil paintings are really beautiful. And he was the one that taught me what to see - how to see. Colors, lights. And how lights can be so musical.
The acting in China is very stylized and dramatic, and I was just me.
The army was a desirable place to be. It offered a more disciplined life than the countryside.
Ma's world is so narrow, ... She's always been an appendage of someone else. That's how her father brought her up. So you ache for her to experience life ... to become liberated, emancipated.
I won't ever encourage this temptress to grow. I don't give her any opportunity in my life, but I'm sure it's there. I understand her.
I wish when I was younger, I took my career more seriously. I wasn't. I was just, like, having a good time.
I worked a year in L.A. That was... a treat.
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.
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.
We were so up high that we were really close to heaven, and that does render greater meaning to life.
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.
I felt extremely comfortable and at home on the set and actually I did homework about breaking down the scenes and often had shot lists in a rough way, but it was actually extremely spontaneous. Working with David Lynch-he is so spontaneous.
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.