Trillionaire entrepreneur, Golden Fang gatekeeper, and serenely maniacal maître d’- Hong Chau has been slowly climbing the roster toward number one on the call sheet for over a decade, bringing powerful performances in nearly every genre. This year alone, she steals the show in two Oscar-nominated movies. Though she should have received a nomination for both, she is up for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Brendan Gleeson’s confidante and caretaker in The Whale.
Her momentum is only going full speed ahead from here at a pace that makes your mind boggle at how anyone can work this much and sleep. She stars in a Netflix crime-drama series airing next month, Wes Anderson project with classically stacked A-list cast in the summer, and a Kelly Reichardt movie set to be released any minute now. The extraordinarily tight-lipped Yorgos Lanthimos feature was reportedly wrapped in December. These are the collaborations that dreams are made of. She is rightfully in high demand, and we can’t wait to see the fruits of all this labor. If you, too, can’t get enough of Chau, here are a few of her finest past performances to rewatch and re-love, or (lucky you) a first watch, while we wait impatiently for more.
Inherent Vice (2014)
Chau’s first feature is one she expected to only be on set for a handful of days. But she stayed for most of the shoot when her scenes were pushed back later and later into the shooting schedule because of other actors’ availability. Instead of viewing it as an inconvenience, she soaked in the gift of observing the set for as long as possible. Through this unexpected gift, she could learn the set and get a feel for the movie in which her character, Jade, lived.
Chau describes Jade as ‘a fairy of the night’ – and isn’t that the most charming description you ever did hear? Chau/Jade first charms the audience in a playful and gloriously bold scene with Joaquin Phoenix at the front desk of the massage parlor (Golden Fang front) ‘Chick Planet’ when trying to sell him on their menu. She fits into the Paul Thomas Anderson world seamlessly but personally felt like the new kid in the candy shop. In ScreenSlam interview from 2015, Chau mentions that she ran lines with Joaquin Phoenix before filming and gleefully told herself in awe afterward, “I just ran lines with Joaquin Phoenix!” To be fair, we would all be in near squeals.
She jokes that she was pinching herself. At the time, it seemed she did not believe she’d get another experience like working on Inherent Vice, particularly with such a fantastic director as PTA. But oh, Hong Chau of just eight years ago… If you could only look into a crystal ball and see the number of opportunities right around the corner.
Downsizing (2017)
She was so fantastic to work with on Inherent Vice. According to Vulture, when award-winning director Alexander Payne emailed Anderson to ask about Chau, Anderson; “responded immediately, “Hong Chau is a star.” Battabingbattaboom, Chau was cast and grabbed a Golden Globe, Indie Spirit, and Screen Actors Guild nomination for best supporting actress for her performance as disabled Vietnamese political activist Ngoc Lan.
But for such a strong performance, there seemed to be a lot of confusion about her character. Even before the movie was released, her management sent her on a series of meetings with Hollywood bigwigs pitching her as “the female romantic lead opposite Matt Damon,” which isn’t *false*. Still, it does skimp on some of the character’s complexities. She told Vulture, “People were super-eager to meet me, and I think they were expecting an Asian Margot Robbie,” Chau says, laughing. “That is not who I am. It was just feeling people were underwhelmed and disappointed. I told my manager, ‘You’ve got to stop pitching me as that!’”
After a bout of strange press that criticized the Ngoc Lan character as being ‘stereotypical’ and with less than rave reviews (especially when compared to past Payne pictures) the cast was left feeling a little wounded. More so still by what felt like an Oscar snub when Chau wasn’t called as a contender. But the Chau show must go on! And it’s safe to say there will be many more nominations from roles we’re ready to be surprised by. As the Independent put it, “-she is very much graduate of the Philip Seymour Hoffman school of unpredictability.”
The Menu (2021)
This movie is all three courses of deliciousness. Chau’s performance as the dedicated manager, Elsa, at master chef Julian Slowik’s (Ralph Fiennes) island eatery is the most scrumptious of all. She’s not only the restaurant maître d’ but a maître d’ for the audience, influencing our atmosphere and guiding us to each portion of the film and its inhabitants. To avoid spoiling your appetite, we’ll leave out the details and say that Chau’s character has a biting wit, righteously malicious agenda, and toys with the most sinewy secrets underneath our perked-up noses. It’s far more substantial and satiating, yet equally beautiful to the sparse plating of ‘amuse bouche’ and the ‘breadless bread plate’ that Slowik serves his guests.
In an interview with EW, The Menu director Mark Mylod confessed that; “Elsa was the hardest character to cast… I wanted that character to have humanity and a pathos, and, by extension, be tragicomic.” He might have had such a tricky time casting Elsa because, according to Chau, “In the script, the only description of my character was that she’s a severe Scandinavian woman, which obviously isn’t me.” So Chau tweaked small and significant aspects of the character to make it her own- like pitching a more unique ensemble for Elsa rather than something that would fade into the background, which customer Amy Westcott agreed wholeheartedly to.
Chau was so sure in her character that when production started and the crew was shooting 360 degrees around the dining tables, she relished the opportunity to offer subtle improvised moments, never knowing when she would be behind the scenes. Watching the movie, you can hardly tear your eyes from her no matter what degree of frame she’s in. This could be felt on the day and not just in print.
The film brought in three Michelin-star awarded Chef Dominique Crenn, who oversaw every aspect of the food’s performance and noted that Elsa was also serving. Chau told Cosmopolitan that;
“-she (Chef Dominique) sidled up next to me during one of our breaks and said, I love what you’re doing. She’s just so spot on. I love all of your mannerisms, and I want you to come work for me. And she meant it! So if this acting thing doesn’t work out, I have a job at her restaurant.”
The idea that Chau’s acting career wouldn’t work out at this point is downright laughable, but it shows how far her talent in a role can reach.
Watchmen (2019)
Along with a career in restaurants, Chau might have also made a killing as a costume designer. Just as she had strong ideas of how Elsa should look in The Menu, she pressed for her Watchmen character Lady Truieu (trillionaire entrepreneur/most intelligent woman in the world) not to have the long earthy hair that Chau naturally sports but a blunt Spock-like look with bright white under eyeliner seldom seen outside Gen-Z-staffed street-style boutiques.
But this level of care grew beyond wigs and makeup to something with deep cultural significance regarding wardrobe for the finale. In a three-page letter to Watchmen’s creator Damon Lindelof, Chau stated her case for wanting Lady Truieu to wear a khan dóng (Vietnamese headpiece) in honor of her mother. The dissertation proves Chau’s investment in telling the story and is a testament to the depth of thought she puts into every aspect of her characters.
Like Elsa, Lady Truieu shares the knowing gaze of someone with a profoundly intelligent mind that filters into calculated words. With Elsa, though, we know exactly how she feels about everything around her, even if it’s only communicated through an eyebrow twitch or a slight lift at the corner of her mouth. Lady Truieu is intentionally harder to read. In an interview with Collider, Chau shared that she knew it was working when she heard it from ‘the boom guy.’
“It’s funny, I always take compliments from the boom guy very seriously because they just stand there all day, holding that boom, and nobody really talks to them or interacts with them. The boom guy on Watchmen came up to me at craft service and he was like, “I really dig your character because I never know if she’s being for real, or if she’s gonna cut you.” That was really nice to hear.”
Ditto to what the boom guy said- We also really dig your character.
Driveways (2019)
In a 2019 sneak preview of what was coming, Chau received a nomination for Best Actress from the Independent Spirit Awards for her role as Kathy. A patient, tender, and thoughtful story, Driveways centers around Kathy’s experience as a mother of a young boy as she cleans out and sells the home of her deceased sister, who lived with a hoarding disorder.
Chau turned down a comic book movie and at least one larger-than-indie project to focus on playing a lead role in the film. She deserved number one on the call sheet and knew she could bring the best of her abilities to the honest and heartfelt script. Though the film centers around cleaning her sister’s house, it touches on everything from parenting, life as a veteran, racial differences, and loneliness in every generation.
Driveways show life’s beautiful, everyday complexities, and Chau once again takes all of these complexities and weaves them into the depth of her layered performance. The director Andrew Ahn was immediately pulled onto the bandwagon; “You get the sense she has a secret from you… That secret feels like the character’s humanity.”
That’s the stunning nature of Hong Chau and her art. It’s the reason she has been compared to a performer like Philip Seymour Hoffman. She doesn’t show up to deliver a performance piece, a spectacle, or a mere award receptacle. Whether she’s a trillionaire entrepreneur, a Golden Fang gatekeeper, or a serenely maniacal maître d’ – she’s there to display the most authentic truth in the character’s humanity.
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