‘Dìdi’ Star Joan Chen On Embracing Vulnerability Through Acting And Motherhood: “This Was A Part Of My Own Life Now Finding Its Expression”

deadline.com:

For Joan Chen playing a doting but slightly disregarded Taiwanese immigrant mother in Sean Wang‘s Dìdi was a healing experience.

Not only could she connect with the struggles that her character Chungsing goes through while raising her college-aged daughter and rebellious teenage son, the onscreen rift also helped her make amends with her daughters offscreen. “It was so cathartic to play Chungsing in this film and redemptive in a way because I think it gave me another chance almost to be a better mother,” Chen says. “And to do it better this time with my own younger daughter on set watching me, I felt like, ‘OK, Audrey.

I’m talking to you. I’m trying to say, I’m sorry, and I love you.'” Throughout her nearly five-decade career, Chen has embodied more than the all-encompassing role of a supportive mommy dearest.

From garnering China’s most prestigious award before she was 18 years old in pre-Maoist political drama Little Flower (1979), playing a femme fatale on Twin Peaks (1990) to garnering U.S.