Joan Chen 5/14 | Asian American Personalities

Asian American Profiles

HEAVENLY AND EARTHY JOAN CHEN

PAGE 5 OF 14

Q:There was one TV movie where you were playing the bad woman fighting the good wife. Was that one of your favorites?
A:Not really. That was just a fun part. You're having fun playing somebody, the evil streak you suppress all your life--there's nowhere for it to go. You can play bad characters and have great fun. Let this part of yourself go wild and have fun. I think being an actress keeps me a better person. I have outlets for my emotions and I study them so I'm aware of my own jealousy, my own greed. So I'm in control, I'm in check. I know what is good. I try to avoid what is bad and just dump all the bad things when I play bad characters.

Q:What things do you want to dump in your next role?
A:Actually 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.

Q:Kind of like your Last Emperor role?
A:No, she has a lot more fun than the Last Empress.

Q:She's a narcotic addict?
A:No, mostly with men. She enjoys her life, she is extremely decadent that way. If you say that my skill is being an actress, she knows how to do things with men. If you know how to do a job very well, you keep doing it. That's like her job, she enjoys it, it's a certain competence, until she finds the person she really want to settle down with. She was actually a married woman. She wanted to give up everything and be with this man and didn't have to do her tricks any more, but the guy was very frightened because she's a frightening woman. So the guy just leaves her. In the end she learns that love actually exists and that it's much weightier than she thought. So she learns, and later on has a very productive life when we meet her again after 30 or 40 minutes.

Q:You said you aren't the kind of woman who threatens other women, that you aren't the temptress type. Did that make this role hard?
A:I'm sure I have a temptress inside of me. I think it's how you're raised. How I was raised is what I am today.

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. If I can understand her, I can do it. So I guess it's great, I have an outlet for that. I can have fun with that.

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Q:When you were acting in China, the Chinese were making propaganda films in which you were playing pure girls. Is the government now letting decadence be shown?
A:The story is a classical story about the 30s and 40s, maybe that's why. It's also more open now. There is a certain struggle. A certain movie is banned for a year and the next year they show it. There is a struggle there, but it's not impossible.

Q:When you were seven you and your brother lost your parents for 10 years.
A:Less than 10 years.

Q:Were you and your brother Chase living in a household by yourselves?
A:We had some aunties. We had some other people came to live in the house because they said we had too big a house. People moved in, they literally moved all your furniture upstairs and stayed downstairs and their children basically took our space. But kids don't know, we don't know hatred. We'd make friends with these people so there is some kind of a support system there. PAGE 6

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