Gemma Chan: interview with Crazy Rich Asians



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I f you are a kind of bliss, you see yourself as one of the overtaking of life, so you obviously have not met Gemma Chan. Perhaps Britain's most prominent Asian actress – perched on the celebrity thread, with a slew of impending film hits – she has a pre-renamed resume to make you cry. After swimming nationally in her teens, playing with the professional violinist, reading politics at Oxford and refusing work with the international law firm Slaughter & May, she got a place at the school of respected Drama Center London theater, and spent a year saving for it by working as a model.


But this is not all history. In person, Chan, who is 35 but looks about 21 years old, has a curious sub-belief. Watching her forge her way into the teahouse at the Clifton Nurseries Gardening Center in West London, in a faded Levi's logo T-shirt, jeans and Adidas Gazelles, her flawless hair and her flawless makeup, it is obvious that she kind of beauty that can change the energy in a room. But while some people appreciate this state (models of the 1990s), Chan – who is thoughtful and prone to self-censorship – is not in fact part of it.

It puzzles me to see how the successful Channel 4 Humans show could have come out with the professional joking machine Jack Whitehall for six years. They broke up in December last year, citing busy work schedules. It is suspected that she could enjoy peace and quiet. To be fair, she is extremely busy. She shot for the shooting of Vogue in the series Captain Marvel in Los Angeles – she can not say what role she plays in the first female adventure of the studio, only moaning » I'm in the makeup chair from 3 am "- and is about to return to the US But Marvel can wait In August, Chan will make his biggest hit at the movies, with a romantic comedy in success, Crazy Rich Asians in the social whirlwind of Singaporean billionaires. "AS you saw?" she asks enthusiastically, in her state-school-gone-chic voice. At the end of the year, she will follow with baits Mary Queen of Scots playing Bess of Hardwick, close confidante of Elizabeth I and Mary's jailer, alongside Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan.


For an actress, it would be an exciting development, but the year exc Chan's epilation is something deeper. Having spent a decade on the front line of the industry dealing with casting in the racial ear – where the idea of ​​putting an Asian woman in, say, a costume drama was a non-starter – she is late her moment. "When I left the drama school, the singing teacher told me:" Be prepared for what you really have trouble, most of the outings of the United Kingdom. Kingdom are dramas of the time and you will not see. "And for the first years, that was really the case," she says. "I did not even have the opportunity to audition."

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The problem, she says, is not that Britain has a wholly white past, but that people think that's the case because of the dramas in the chocolate box that we observed. "The version of the story we know is not necessarily true," she says, giving the example of the 140,000 Chinese who fought with Allied forces during the First World War and who were "literally painted from history". It was a revelation, she says, for director Josie Rourke to allow an Anglo-Chinese woman from Kent to play the role of Elizabeth Hardwick in the story of Mary Queen of Scots. "Margot jokes that Beth needs her own spin-off, every scene is a matter of power."


To this day, Chan has mostly been the only non-white woman on her projects ("still the girlfriend," she says, with an eye-roll). Crazy Rich Asians will change all that. While, at the basic level, the movie is a fun and sexy hug, it also feels like a cheerful cinematic revolution. To begin with, Warner Bros. has spent a fortune making and marketing a traditional summer romcom with an entirely Asian cast – a Hollywood premiere that, in its own way, looks like a Black Panther moment .

"This is not a movie of" problems "," Chan says, thankfully. "The themes are universal: love, family, tradition, modernity". It tells the story of a Sino-American girl (played by Constance Wu) who travels to Singapore so that her boyfriend can be the best man at a lavish wedding, then discovers that he is a billionaire with a hardcore society mom (Michelle Yeoh, on terrifying form). Better yet, the Asian decor gives all the novels of duty, gender, class, fresh money and fashion, a new life much needed. Chan is Astrid, an amazing fashion plate, educated at Oxford (his familiar?) Who shops for diamonds before breakfast. Apparently, they had wanted her for the lead role, but she preferred to take the most intriguing part of a wealthy woman who runs a toxic marriage to an affable husband, "inferior status" – a part that was not part of her life. she nails.

On the other hand, his own love life is rather peaceful. Post-Jack, she's been on the odd date and says her friends are pushing her to join the Raya dating app (for which you have to be nominated and who is rumored to be full of celebs). "But I do not know how to be single," she complains, pointing out that a lot has changed in her six years as a couple. "All my friends at the university are married or have children." But she's fine. "It feels good, like a new chapter, a new beginning."

She also wants to clarify that she is not the perfectionist that both people assume she is. Yes, his childhood resume is the last word in passing, and the sight of his first row at Christopher Kane or Burberry may seem incredibly polite, but it's never the complete picture.

Positive racial stereotypes are still stereotypes." "In fact, I was not a wise child," she says, glittering. "I've never been very good at authority." At the age of 12, she was almost sent home after an orchestra tour for drinking with her older classmates.It was also the year she started. to smoking. "I've always had a mischievous side," she says, which she brought to her filming Vogue . "Once we had come up with this pretty character sexy for me, I was leaving, "she said smiling


Of course, the clichés around Asian parents are particularly deep, even if she says that hers are sometimes consistent type .. Of course, his father engineer (native of Hong Kong) and her mother pharmacist (a Chinese Scotswoman) were appalled when she refused this municipal law work in. To become an actress "My father said," No matter how good you are, how many Asian faces did you see on TV? She could not argue with her logic, but she held her courage by saying, "I want to be part of changing that. "

Their relationship has been good for years now," says Chan, but her parents are never the ones who praise her. "It was particularly touching," she says, when "it's a good thing. Another day, unexpectedly, her mother texted, "You know, we're really proud of you." For a split second, Chan's self-consciousness seems to evaporate. tea? "she asks, beaming.

Crazy Rich Asians is released in cinemas on August 17.

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