Joan Chen 4/14 | Asian American Personalities

Asian American Profiles

HEAVENLY AND EARTHY JOAN CHEN

PAGE 4 OF 14

Q:Have you talked about kids?
A:Yeah, we talk about kids.

Q:What's the concensus?
A:We'll have children, yeah.

Q:When?
A:I don't know. When we feel comfortable. We believe in having a family.

Q:Before the marriage you were going all out to become a top international star. Has the marriage effected your goals?
A:I think so. It doesn't seem to be as important as when I didn't have anything else in my life. Now I have a family. I have a real home, a place I really want to come back to. I get really homesick before because there wasn't much to be missed. So it has some effect.

Q:Could you be happy without a career?
A:I will always have a career. I believe in working. I don't believe that taking care of your house and children is enough for a woman. You don't feel complete.

Q:In Heaven and Earth you played a mother who starts off in her 30s and goes up to her 50s.
A:80s, actually. They probably didn't reveal that in the trailer.

Q:It gives you no opportunity to be physically attractive.
A:It's one less burden. You don't have to be pretty, you can just concentrate on the content. That's more important. I had a great time.

Q:How was Oliver Stone?
A:He was extremely good. He really cares. When he is working, he is extremely pure. The energy's very well directed, very pure. He makes everybody concentrate better. Very demanding, also.

Q:How does he compare to Bernardo Bertolucci?
A:They're both great directors but two very different individuals.

Q:Do you get into arguments with Oliver Stone too?
A:Not a lot.

Q:Do you have differences and bad feelings?
A:No, never bad feelings, but sometimes there are differences. We talk it out. He's great to work with.

Q:How did that role compare with your other roles?
A:The most difficult, extremely difficult.

Q:Is it your favorite?
A:I don't know if it's my favorite. Just because it's so difficult, so challenging. I could say I never worked as hard, which is a good feeling--to work hard.

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Q:In what way? Learning the mannerisms?
A:Learning everything because it's very far away from myself. As far as you can get, actually. Age is one thing. Being a peasant is another. All that I have seen in this world, she never has. Her life is in the field, raising children, trying to protect them but cannot. Trying to survive the war, seeing so much horror and misery and death, fighting hunger. Physical hunger and physical poverty is something I could only imagine. I've been poor when I was in China so I could imagine. As kids we never had to starve but just didn't have enough meat, enough rice. Somehow I could try to go back and try to relate to that. And not having any experience of having been a mother, I played a mother of six. Three or four of my children are older than me, and it's very very difficult.

Q:Were there certain parts of your personality you had to suppress?
A:The city person inside of me had to go, completely go. And that's the part I had to work on very very hard, and Oliver is a good policeman to be there and watch and he has very sensitive eyes so it's very good. I've been very proud of the work. That's what counts. PAGE 5

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