This incredible journey, from Red Army propaganda films to Hollywood glamour, could soon end with an Oscar nomination thanks to “Diddy”, the famous story of a difficult relationship between a mother and her teenage son, in has Joan Chen playing one immigrant. mother.
The 63-year-old actress plays Chungseng, a frustrated Taiwanese artist living in California, trying her best to support her family of two children, one of whom is a 13-year-old son. her, who is enjoying his interest in skateboarding and busy with his first love.
Chen told AFP that this role “reveals from me, because it represents the life I lived,” adding, “I, like Zhongxing, am an immigrant mother who raised two American children were accompanied by a close relationship full of love, but also with a cultural gap, misunderstandings and expectations.” “It didn’t come true.”
The actress has been in front of the camera since she was 14 years old. At that time, a director saw her, and sent her photos to Mao Zedong’s wife, Jiang Qing.
“I was very happy that they thought I had what it took to embody the character they needed,” Joan Chen recalls, adding, “It wasn’t my dream I’ve always thought about it when they threw me small, I learned to love it.”
Her fame in Communist China in the 1970s prevented her from being sent to work in the fields during the Cultural Revolution.
Then, at the age of twenty, she moved to the United States, where she studied cinema, with little hope of a future as an Asian actress in Hollywood.
She gained international fame thanks to her role in Bernardo Bertolucci’s film “The Last Emperor” in 1987, in which she played the wife of the last Chinese ruler Pu Yi. The film won nine Oscars, one of which was for Best Picture.
Joan Chen continued her career in the United States with the character Josie Packard, a glamorous woman in David Lynch’s popular series “Twin Peaks”, as well as several other films. But the march did not last long because there were no posts for it.
“At that time, there were only Asian directors or screenwriters able to create a role for me,” she laments “The role didn’t follow.
Chen continued to participate in roles from time to time in Western productions, but the actress worked mainly in China to achieve her creative goals.
But in recent years, the equation has changed thanks to the international success of films with mostly Asian actors, including “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Everything Everywhere at Once,” or productions South Korea such as “Parasite” and “Squid Game. “
In “Diddy,” which opened in theaters in a few US cities before its national release on August 16, Joan Chen plays a talented painter who abandons his ambitions because of his family and come to settle in the United States.
Chunseng sincerely takes care of her two sons, one of whom is Chris, the hero of the film.
This American teenager, nicknamed “Didi”, does not treat his mother well, not understanding all the complexities of her personal life, which he begins to gradually understand.
This love letter from director Xun Wang to his mother makes a special mention of Joan Chen.
She says, “The sorrows and joys we see in the film reflect an experience I lived personally, remembering that her life is very different from the lives of her two daughters, who were born in the United States.
She explains that as an immigrant she had to deal with “a state of uncertainty about the land she was on.”
“Diddy” won an award at Sundance, the true destination of auteur cinema in the United States, and it could end the actress: critics are talking about a possible Oscar nomination to have her for her performance in this special first film from her young filmmaker.
“When there are enough writers and directors, we create more roles that look like more people,” Chen says, “It’s so happy that I’m still working.
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