- Joan Chen gained international fame after appearing in “The Last Emperor” and “Twin Peaks.”
- She says work in Hollywood “dried up” for her as she aged, which led her to return to China.
- Chen is now enjoying a career resurgence with roles in “Dìdi” and the Sundance movie “The Wedding Banquet.”
Joan Chen was once dubbed “the young Elizabeth Taylor of China.” But after early success in the 1980s and 1990s, she found her career in the United States stalling out.
“Things kind of dried up as I aged,” Chen, now 63, told Business Insider at the Sundance premiere of her new movie “The Wedding Banquet.” “I think I was that exotic flower in Hollywood. And once you pass a certain age, you’re certainly not that.”
Chen came to the US as a college student and gained international prominence after starring in the Oscar-winning Bernardo Bertolucci film “The Last Emperor” in 1987; soon after, her role as Josie Packard in “Twin Peaks” cemented her fame in the West. She was on rise — so much so that she eventually asked to be written out of “Twin Peaks” to pursue film roles, a move she later regretted.
When offers for good roles Stateside dried up, Chen returned to China, where she first found fame as a teenager. She credited her versatility in playing both English and Chinese-language roles as the skill that allowed her to continue working.
“I basically didn’t come to LA for decades,” Chen told BI. “I would travel to Australia or to China instead of traveling to LA.”
The last few years have seen Chen enjoying a career resurgence in Hollywood. After landing a role in the 2023 FX series “A Murder at the End of the World” and appearing in the acclaimed coming-of-age indie comedy “Dìdi,” Chen is being hailed as the breakout star of “The Wedding Banquet,” the remake of the 1993 Ang Lee rom-com in which she stars alongside Kelly Marie Tran, Bowen Yang, and Lily Gladstone.
Though Chen isn’t quite sure why her fortune has changed again, she’s grateful.
“I am really happy that I can be working here again,” Chen said. “It’s obviously a welcome thing.”
“The Wedding Banquet” hits theaters April 18.
