Hong Chau

Award won Role or nomination

1. 1979 age 0

   Born

2. 2014 age 35

   CreditInherent Vice

3. 2017 age 38

   CreditDownsizing

4. 2022 age 43

   CreditThe Menu

   CreditThe Whale

5. 2023 age 44

   CreditAsteroid City

6. 2024 age 45

   CreditKinds of Kindness

7. 2026 age 47

   CreditWuthering Heights

• BCBryan Cranston2 titles
• NHNeil Patrick Harris2 titles
• JBJames Van Der Beek2 titles
• MSMartin Short2 titles
• WDWillem Dafoe2 titles
• MRMargot Robbie2 titles
• JDJeremy Dawson2 titles
• THTom Hanks1 title
• EBEric Braeden1 title
• RCRoman Coppola1 title

• …When you have that sort of background, being an actor in Hollywood is like the wildest, most far-fetched occupation that you can think of and I kind of fell into acting because I was initially interested in writing when I was younger and I went to college initially thinking that I was gonna major in creative writing and that didn’t work out. I ended up studying film instead because I thought it was also another form of storytelling…

  Hong Chau, CC BY-SA 4.0

• … it is a character that is potentially provocative, but I don’t think that it was intended that way. That comes in with whatever baggage the audience brings in to the movie-viewing experience… There have been so many other movies where an Asian character has been under-served or just been sort of a background character…

  Hong Chau, CC BY-SA 4.0

• …as an actor, I never am attracted to just playing a physicality or a bit – just having a disability or an accent or something isn’t attractive to be because it can kind of be like a party trick. When you’re dealing with a character who’s disabled, that’s somebody’s life. That’s somebody’s reality, so you need to treat it with a lot of respect and profundity and not to turn it in to a gimmick, like a ‘bit’...

  Hong Chau, CC BY-SA 4.0

• The most important thing was making sure she came across as a human being. We can all have many different sides, some that ask more of you in terms of identity than others. For me, I didn’t want her accent or her disability to be the most interesting things about her, but I did look into some real life female activists and took a lot of inspiration from those amazing women. I was also inspired by Flannery O’Connor; I grew up in Louisiana and you would always see pictures of her with her canes, as she suffered from Lupus, but continued doing amazing work.

  Hong Chau, CC BY-SA 4.0

Nationalities

United States, Vietnam

Languages

English

Years active

2006–

Notable works

Downsizing, Watchmen

Education

Boston University, Eleanor McMain Secondary School, Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts