1. Joan Chen is a Chinese-American actress and film director.
34 Facts About Joan Chen
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Joan Chen came to the attention of American audiences for her portrayal of Wanrong in the Bernardo Bertolucci historical epic film The Last Emperor, which won nine Academy Awards including Best Picture.
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At the age of 14, Joan Chen was discovered on the school rifle range by Jiang Qing, the wife of leader Mao Zedong and major Chinese Communist Party figure, for excelling at marksmanship.
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Joan Chen graduated from high school a year in advance, and at the age of 17 entered Shanghai International Studies University, where she majored in English.
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Joan Chen portrayed a pre-Maoist revolutionary's daughter, who, reunited with her brother, a wounded Communist soldier, later learned that his doctor was her biological mother.
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The songs, "I Love You, China" and "High Flies the Petrel", sung by Joan Chen's character, are perennial favorites in China.
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In 1981, Joan Chen starred in Awakening, directed by Teng Wenji.
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At age 20, Joan Chen moved to the United States, where she studied filmmaking at California State University, Northridge.
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Joan Chen went on to portray the Last Empress Wanrong in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which won 9 Academy Awards in 1988, including Best Picture.
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Joan Chen starred alongside Rutger Hauer in 1989's The Blood of Heroes, written and directed by David Webb Peoples.
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Joan Chen portrayed two different characters in Clara Law's Temptation of a Monk: a seductive princess of Tang dynasty, and a dangerous temptress.
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Joan Chen returned to Shanghai to star in Stanley Kwan's Red Rose White Rose opposite Winston Chao, and subsequently won a Golden Horse Award and a Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award for her performance.
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Tired of being cast as an exotic beauty in Hollywood films, Joan Chen moved into directing in 1998 with the critically acclaimed Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, adapted from the novella Celestial Bath by her friend Geling Yan.
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Joan Chen later directed Autumn in New York, starring Richard Gere and Winona Ryder, in 2000.
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Joan Chen starred in the Asian-American comedy Saving Face as a widowed mother, who is shunned by the Chinese-American community for being pregnant and unwed and has come to live with her lesbian daughter.
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Joan Chen starred in the Asian American independent film Americanese and in Michael Almereyda's Tonight at Noon, the first part of a two part project, scheduled to be released in 2009.
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In 2007, Joan Chen was acclaimed for her performance in Tony Ayres' drama The Home Song Stories.
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Joan Chen portrayed a glamorous and unstable Chinese nightclub singer who struggles to survive in 1970s Australia with her two children.
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Joan Chen co-starred in Bruce Beresford's 2009 adaptation of the autobiography of dancer Li Cunxin, Mao's Last Dancer, along with Wang Shuangbao and Kyle MacLachlan.
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In 2009, Joan Chen starred alongside Feng Yuanzheng and Liu Jinshan in the Chinese TV series Newcomers to the Middle-Aged, directed by Dou Qi, in which she played a female doctor facing middle-age problems.
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Joan Chen played the part of goddess Guan Yin in the 2010 Chinese TV adaptation of Journey to the West, directed by Cheng Lidong.
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In October 2009 Joan Chen was the curator of the first Singapore Sun Festival, whose theme was "The Art of Living Well".
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Joan Chen selected five films for screening during the festival: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Dead Man Walking, Hannah and Her Sisters, Still Life and Edward Scissorhands.
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In 2010, Joan Chen joined the cast of Wang Leehom's directorial debut Love in Disguise, Alexi Tan's Color Me Love, Ilkka Jarvi-Laturi's Kiss, His First and veteran acting coach Larry Moss' Relative Insanity.
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In 2011, Joan Chen played Secretary Bishop's girlfriend on the television series Fringe episode "Immortality".
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Joan Chen was cast as the Mongol Yuan Dynasty empress Chabi in the 2014 American television series Marco Polo.
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Joan Chen appeared in several episodes of the 2018 Chinese television drama Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace as Ula Nara Yixiu.
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In 2014, Joan Chen served as a jury member at the 71st Venice International Film Festival.
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Joan Chen was formerly married to actor Jim "Jimmy" Lau from 1985 to 1990.
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Joan Chen married her second husband, cardiologist Peter Hui, on January 18,1992.
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In 1981, Joan Chen left China to study at the State University of New York at New Paltz, before transferring to the California State University, Northridge.
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In October 2008, Joan Chen made the cover of Trends Health magazine alongside actresses Ke Lan and Ma Yili to promote the Chinese Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer Prevention campaign.
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On January 8,2010, Joan Chen attended, alongside Nancy Pelosi, Nicole Kidman, and Joe Torre, the ceremony to help Family Violence Prevention Fund break ground on a new center located in the Presidio of San Francisco intended to combat violence against women and children.
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On January 15,2010, Joan Chen was set to appear, along with other Asian American personalities, in a series of videos supporting the Center for the Pacific Asian Family.