Born in a refugee camp in Thailand, The Whale’s Hong Chau has made her name playing unflappable, steely characters, although the reality is somewhat different. “I’m a bit of a pushover,” the Bafta and Oscar nominee tells Screen.
Hong Chau is someone you would want in your corner. Whether scaring off a missionary with a single glare in The Whale, or politely facing down a trio of finance bros in The Menu, her characters are united by a quiet, unflappable, don’t-mess-with-me steeliness that must be useful in her daily life.
“I’m a bit of a pushover,” she demurs. “I’m just very mousy. But I’m my most confident self on a set. I get a little bit cocky. When I really click with the material and the director, and it’s all flowing and there’s no hesitancy, it’s fun to get on set and think, ‘I know what I need to do.’”
Her confidence is justified. Acclaimed for her performance in The Menu, she has also been nominated for best supporting actress at both Oscar and Bafta for her work in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale — as Liz, the exasperated friend and carer who tends to morbidly obese protagonist Charlie (Brendan Fraser).
In addition, she co-stars with Michelle Williams in Kelly Reichardt’s 2022 Cannes-premiering art-world comedy Showing Up, and is currently on Peacock in Rian Johnson’s murder-mystery TV show Poker Face. She is upcoming in Shawn Ryan’s Netflix limited series The Night Agent, and later this year she will be seen in Yorgos Lanthimos’s AND and Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City.
“It’s amazing and I’m so delighted and surprised by it,” she admits. “I don’t have connections, I don’t know anybody, I’m not friends with high-powered people or anything like that. I’m just so thrilled that it’s happening organically.”
Chau was drawn to The Whale by the chance to work with Aronofsky (“an amazing director, and everybody would work on basically anything that Darren wanted to do”) and also Samuel D Hunter’s adaptation of his own stage play (“the script was beautiful and complex”). When it came to the shoot, the distancing requirements of the Covid-19 pandemic proved beneficial to Chau in one particular aspect.
“There wasn’t as much socialising on set, because the AD would come over and say, ‘You have to distance, you have to stand apart!’” she says. “That was interesting, because one of the complaints I had prior to Covid was that sets can get a little unfocused — people are on their phones or talking loudly while a rehearsal is going on. It was nice to have that focus on The Whale. I wish I had that level of focus and intensity on everything moving forward.”
At a time when so many Hollywood stars come from the same social circle — even the same gene pool — Chau is an unusual proposition. Her parents were Vietnamese boat people who fled the country in 1979. She was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and her family eventually settled in New Orleans, where her parents washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant to save enough money to open their own convenience store. Chau spoke Vietnamese as her first language, and went to Boston University to study creative writing. She did not consider acting until she had taken public speaking and improv classes to overcome her shyness.
“A lot of people have said to me, ‘Oh my gosh, you have such an amazing story,’” she reflects. “But I feel a little sheepish about accepting that compliment because I feel like it’s my parents that have an amazing story. They took that leap of faith. But it is pretty amazing I started life in a refugee camp in Thailand, and somehow came to the US and became an actor in Hollywood. If anybody wants to take inspiration from that, go ahead!”
After Chau moved to Los Angeles, her first decade in acting was punctuated by student films, three-month gaps between auditions, and roles such as ‘Asian masseuse’ in an episode of The Sarah Silverman Show in 2008. She struggled to find regular work even after appearing in three series of David Simon’s Treme (set in her adopted hometown of New Orleans) from 2011-13, and in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice in 2014.
As an Asian American with, as she puts it, no connections or high-powered friends in the business, Chau says she is not resentful of other actors who are better connected and better financed.
“I don’t fault anyone for their parentage or the life they were born into. You can’t undo that. But I do think that what’s lacking in the arts right now is people who come from working-class or lower-class backgrounds.
“If you look at the previous generation, a lot of actors came from those backgrounds, and that was part of what made them so exciting,” she continues. “It’s also a question of life perspective. If every writer on a TV show has graduated from an Ivy League school, and if every actor has gone to Juilliard, you get further and further from what’s real and authentic.”
Breakthrough role
The film that changed Chau’s trajectory was 2017’s Downsizing, scoring her Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations as a slum-dwelling Vietnamese activist in Alexander Payne’s science-fiction satire. “The way that Charlie [in The Whale] is the role of a lifetime for Brendan [Fraser], that was what that character was for me,” she recalls. “It’s definitely my favourite of all the ones I’ve played, not only because it was my first major role, but because it used all of me. There were monologues that required a high level of craft, and it utilised a large part of my actual biography, which I never thought would happen in a studio movie. It was such a beautiful, fulfilling experience.”
After Downsizing, Chau was at last offered high-profile roles, including Lady Trieu, the trillionaire genius in Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen series. Now, at the age of 43, she has reached the point where directors and casting directors actively seek her out. Initially, she turned down an audition for The Whale because she had just had her first baby.
“I didn’t think I had it in me,” Chau explains. “I had a lot of other stuff going on, and I didn’t think I could put in the work that was required of me. But I’m glad I did.” She also resisted Showing Up at first, because she was “too tired”. But her career has gathered its own momentum. Reichardt hired Chau after her role in Driveways, an independent film from 2019. Lanthimos chose Chau after he saw Showing Up. And Anderson cast her after seeing her in an off-Broadway play.
“It still feels like I’m pushing a boulder up a hill — I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I’ve made it,” Chau says, despite her recent success. “At the same time, I feel satisfied. I approach all of this with joy and gratitude. It’s not about having a full schedule, it’s about being able to work on quality things, which I have been able to do.
“I know other people might say, ‘How come she hasn’t had a leading role yet?’ But I don’t think that way. I love all the supporting characters I’ve gotten to play. They’re delicious. They’re only limited in screen time, not in complexity.”
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