Joan Chen: The world is watching Asia

SINGAPORE — Joan Chen, star of HBO Asia’s upcoming series Serangoon Road, believes that opportunities to be noticed internationally, or specifically in Hollywood, are opening up for Asian actors more than ever before.

“Now, more than ever before, yes. I think people long to understand Asia more than ever before and so, it’s always much better when people actually want to know you and understand you, instead of just putting you in a situation because they needed some spices, you know, for the dish. Now, you’re the main dish, so, it’s very different,” the 51-year-old Chinese-American actress, screenwriter, director and film producer told journalists from Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan in a press junket hosted by HBO Asia to launch the original series Serangoon Road, which is slated to air third quarter of this year.

“Nowadays, it’s much easier to do that because the world is watching Asia, and the world is interested in the concept of the mix of the East and West. And the West more than ever now wants to understand the East,” she added.     

Joan is one of the Chinese actors who had successfully penetrated Hollywood. She was a teen superstar in her birthplace China before her Hollywood breakthrough role as the taboo-defying empress in Bernardo Bertolucci’s multi-Oscar-winning film The Last Emperor in 1987. Among other notable films she has since starred in were Bruce Beresford’s Mao’s Last Dancer (2009), Tony Ayres’ The Home Song Stories (2007) and Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (2007). On American TV, she’s perhaps best-known for appearing in the cult-crime drama Twin Peaks in the ’90s. She also acted alongside Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen on HBO’s Emmy-winning made-for-TV movie Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012). She expanded her professional portfolio with screenwriting and directing credits via the critically-acclaimed Xiu-Xiu: The Sent Down Girl and then Autumn in New York topbilling Richard Gere and Winona Ryder.  

“I love doing all of it,” Joan says of her multi-hyphenate career. “The writing, directing and acting I love; the producing part is something that I have to do — it’s not my favorite job — but all other creative aspects of the business I enjoy very much because I live a very boring life. Work is really an extension of my life; (it gives me) excitement.”

At the presscon held at the Mandarin Oriental, the actress looked stunning and several years younger in her sexy black dress. In such websites as Askmen.com, her sultry, exotic beauty and curves have been described as the “real moneymaker” that generate the movie offers. Interestingly, it was the “typecasting” due to her looks that drove her to delve into creative pursuits other than acting.

Joan related, in particular, how she found herself in the director’s chair: “Back when I was still acting in L.A., I think there were a couple of stereotypical images that were accepted by the industry. And they don’t want the entire understanding… or just you as a human. It’s more as a spice, a color and as an exotic element. When I was young and beautiful (laughs), I was the object of desire and the sexy vixen. And then I got a bit older and I’m this dragon woman, evil, tiger mom — still very stereotypical and it’s only a tiny aspect of you. You’re a certain spice, and needed in certain dishes.

“As I got to my mid-30s, there were the lawyer-accountant-professional-woman-type roles and I’d probably wasn’t suitable because I was this exotic flower. So I felt the parts were getting more and more simple, the evil dragon woman, the empires, and I didn’t want to do that anymore, I was a little tired of it.

“When I went to judge the Berlin Film Festival before the turn of the millennium, there were extremely dark, depressing and for me, not meaningful films. And during the process of judging, I thought I had a story to tell. On the plane home, I adapted my friend’s short story to a script. That was the start (of my directing).”

Joan also talked about some of the controversies she faced in the past. According to her bio, she was born in Shanghai to a family of doctors, but was educated in the arts. She was only in her teens when she was named Best Actress in China for a film titled Little Flower; her teenage stardom had Time Magazine pronouncing her as the “Elizabeth Taylor of China.” But Joan left her home country to study and then work in the States (eventually becoming a naturalized US citizen), a move that was widely “criticized and got me on the bad side politically.” Now, in retrospect, she understands where it all emanated from.

Joan shared, “I didn’t realize when I was a teenager that when I played Little Flower, the whole country fell in love with her. I think it was a breath of fresh air because I didn’t perform, I just sort of bared my innocent self, and the film was fresh. I don’t think anybody during that time would have missed that film. Obviously, I became this symbol. I became this little flower.

“When I left China, it was (seen) as sort of a betrayal because I left the motherland and all this love and adulation, and people felt betrayed. When I (starred) in Tai-Pan (her first Hollywood film in 1986), it was even worse, because I played this mistress of a white man — and she seemed to like it. So, that was another blow… That was just too much to the people.

“That kind of antagonism, when I look back now, I understand because people loved you… (But) I felt very hurt because gosh, I didn’t know where to turn to, like I knew in America, I was a foreign, exotic element, but going back to China seemed like a no-option. That was a lonely time. But looking back now, I know where it came from.”

Asked if her being a naturalized American is still an issue with her Chinese fans, Joan said, “Not a problem anymore. Everyone in China, if you talk to the young generation like, ‘Oh you know, I played this sexy woman and a lover of a white guy and got criticized,’ and they are like, ‘What?’ It’s a different era, different generation, and so many Chinese actors and filmmakers have residency all over the world. Our top leaders’ children are studying abroad. It’s a different time.”  

 Meanwhile, in Serangoon Road, the 10-episode series set in 1960s Singapore and which is a co-production of HBO Asia with Australia’s ABC TV, Joan plays Patricia, the owner and operator of The Cheng Detective Agency which was put up by her late husband Winston. Haunted by the conspiracy connected to her husband’s death, Patricia struggles to find the motivation to keep the agency running and, at the same time, find justice for her husband.

“We share many traits (but) I’m more fortunate than she is,” she says of her character. “When I first read the script, she wasn’t much, and I think I brought a great deal of my own feelings into her, that she (became) flesh and blood. What I have, she doesn’t have, and that’s how I relate to her. Her husband died, and the most precious in my life are my children and she is unable to conceive, which gives her this underlying sense of unworthiness and longing. I think if a character has that kind of longing and loss, then she’s more relatable to the audience. So, we’re like two sides of the same coin, like what I have, what I deem so dear, she has either lost or never had, and that’s how I relate to her.”

With the mention of her being a mother of two, Joan was also asked if she’s open to having her kids follow in her footsteps. “All little kids want to act and have fun... I think my kids will develop whatever interest they have. And they do make little films with their iPhone. Nowadays, the young generation are fantastic, they don’t see (filmmaking) as something difficult. I think they have the tools to tell their story. Filmmaking, I think, is demystified nowadays and people now accept less-than-perfect cinematography… and I encourage young people, as well as my kids, and I think it is what you have to say is the most important thing,” she said.

Going into the subject of great stories, Joan believes there’s an abundance of them in the current crop of Oscar finalists this year. Asked on her personal bets in the highly-anticipated annual awards, she said, “There are so many wonderful films this year. I love so many. I love Argo, and I usually don’t like films that aren’t dialogue-heavy but I did love Lincoln because the dialogue is just fantastic. I love the story of Life of Pi; it’s astounding to watch… There are just so many (favorites). Such a treat! Especially this year, I appreciate the fact that the heroes of the film are real-life heroes. People do love Lord of the Rings, that type, but (in this year’s films) it’s real-life, ordinary people put in a situation and their character comes through and they become heroes. It warms your heart to see something like that and we need it.”