#jack is definitely the sober one at any family event/around their female friends

[carbonateddelusion]

I'd trust Jack with my drink because if anybody got near them OR my drink they'd punch them in the face and proceed to get into a brawl <3

[enrightlynn-blog]

“You’re more likely to see an alien on screen than an Asian woman.”

I interviewed the actress Gemma Chan and talked about roles for ethnic minorities on British TV, her decision to turn down parts requiring nudity, and still getting spots at 31. 

Published on Never Underdressed, May 19, 2014.

Gemma Chan is much more reserved than your usual actress. She is the antithesis of those luvvie types who easily and quickly offer cheeks to be kissed while reeling off anecdotes replete with celebrity names and swear words. Instead, she is circumspect, articulate and reserved, choosing her words carefully, using an elongated middle-class and diplomatic ‘uuuum’ to politely gather her thoughts before answering any question that could be construed as contentious. She read law at Oxford before going on to drama school at the Drama Centre in London and although she never practised the subject, it seems to make sense that she was drawn to it.  

‘I’m not shy but I don’t feel the need to be the centre of attention in a social situation. I like watching other people and observing,’ the 31-year-old, who has appeared in UK TV shows like Sherlock and Fresh Meat as well as the 2014 US blockbuster Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, says when we catch up after the Never Underdressed photoshoot. For although Chan is reserved – surprisingly so for those of us who erroneously (and ridiculously) thought we knew her simply by looking at her CV and scrutinising pictures of her on the red carpet with her comedian boyfriend Jack Whitehall – she is resolutely professional and sometimes her profession involves standing around in beautiful clothes (today they come courtesy of east Asian designers like Huishan Zhang and Issey Miyake) while turning her face to and from a camera that clearly loves her. She modelled for a time between Oxford and drama school and she still knows how to take direction from a photographer, adjusting her long limbs (she’s 5’9” and a perfect size eight) gracefully, training her intense deep brown gaze on the camera when requested.

She is most comfortable, however, when acting – on screen and on stage. ‘It’s quite liberating to play characters that are nothing like me. You can access those parts of your personality that are more eccentric or quirky or funny or outrageous. I do things in character that I would definitely be too shy to do in real life,’ the actress, who has played a latex-clad dominatrix in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, says.  

Currently appearing in the critically acclaimed Yellow Face, a play that examines the experience of the Chinese diaspora in America, at the National Theatre, she takes on a variety of roles, flitting from an elderly Chinese-American mother to a loved-up star, all the while being very funny and quirky, proving her own point that she is somehow more at ease on stage than in person.    

’Yellow Face is a very political play with a lot of serious points to make,’ she says, ‘but comedy is a great way to get people to engage with the ideas.’

The political issues raised in Yellow Face, namely the central conceit of a character being cast or not cast in a show because of his race (the play uses the 1990 controversy of Jonathan Pryce playing an east Asian character in Miss Saigon as a starting point), are something that Chinese-British Chan – who was brought up the eldest of two daughters by her Chinese-born parents in Kent, attending a school with a ’handful of black and ethnic minority students’ – can easily relate to.

She refers to a ‘really sobering and depressing’ Guardian article she read recently, which claimed that audiences of mainstream films are as likely to see an ‘otherworldly’ female character portrayed on screen as they are an Asian female character. ‘Otherworldly being some sort of fantasy or alien character,’ she explains. ‘So you’re more likely to see an alien on film than an Asian woman on film. Which is kind of tough.’

Although she keeps abreast of Chinese cinema and loves the work of Ang Lee and Wong Kar-wai, she is more interested in seeing women like her, members of the diaspora, being represented on British screens and stages. ‘For me, as someone who has grown up in the West, I think it’s important that we make stories that reflect our experience, stories where ethnicity doesn’t come into it; where, as an actor, I’m just playing parts [that don’t reference ethnicity].’

She’s part of a new campaign, fronted by actors like Ruth Wilson, Lenny Henry and her boyfriend Jack Whitehall, called Act for Change, which aims to examine diversity in British TV drama. ‘In America, when you get a casting breakdown it will say, please submit all ethnicities for this part, unless stated otherwise – you know obviously unless they’re casting a family or whatever, all ethnicities get submitted,’ she says.’ ‘But we don’t have that at the bottom of our breakdowns here [in the UK] so the presumption is Caucasian I suppose.’

Chan, who happily self-identifies as a feminist (‘It just means that you believe that women and men should be equal. It’s as simple as that. If you believe that, you’re a feminist. Men can be feminists too’) is also part of the No More Page 3 campaign and speaks passionately on the subject: ‘[The Sun] is a newspaper that should be informing readers, not objectifying women. It’s tough when it’s the most widely read newspaper in the land: it really affects the culture that young people grow up in, and the roles that men and women have in society.’

She says that she has rejected roles on the basis of gratuitous nudity (‘I turned down a big potential series because we couldn’t agree on the nudity. I mean there are actresses who are very comfortable with it and that’s absolutely fine but for me it’s got to be about the character and the story’) and she admits that the internet has limited how willing she is to appear naked on screen.

‘It’s tricky now because you know that people won’t just watch it and see it in the show. There’ll be screen grabs taken from it and potentially it ends up on dodgy sites; even stuff that I did in Secret Diary of Call Girl, there are pictures taken and then it’s out of context.’

Would she feel more comfortable appearing nude on stage than on screen, I wonder?  

‘Yes … On stage, photography is banned and obviously people can see you but it’s part of that story that’s being told. It’s not something taken out of context, something for people to gawp at.’

Politically engaged and reserved and polite as she is, Chan is still very much up for a natter, however, and will happily chat about the silly stuff too. Gazing upon her perfect heart-shaped face, I can’t help but wonder if she has ever had a spot. ‘Yes! YES!’ she exclaims, ‘Yeah I get spots, I don’t get loads but yeah of course that happens. It’s strange, you think it should have stopped by now, it doesn’t seem fair.’

When a spot does appear, she covers it up with Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage (‘It can hide a multitude of sins. It is the best, the best’) and she also rates Clinique’s Stay-Matte Sheer Pressed Powder (‘It’s not too heavy but it just keeps the shine away all day’) as well as NARS bronzers and blushers and MAC eye make-up.   For red carpet events, which she describes as ‘terrifying’, she has so far mainly eschewed the services of a stylist, picking her own clothes, sometimes enlisting a friend to help.

I don’t think I have one look for the red carpet. I think it’s good to change it up depending on the event, sometimes go for glamour, other times go quirkier,’ she says. ‘An outfit can look different if it’s under flash or if it’s a daytime event with natural light and something might just not come across in a photo. It can just look really flat or not be flattering. I get a friend to take an iPhone snap once I’ve decided on an outfit, just to see what it looks like in an image. Especially if I’m wearing something see-through or sheer.’

On the subject of Fresh Meat, she does away with her usual diplomacy to admit that yes she does have a favourite character. ‘I love Howard. He’s just brilliant,’ she says, echoing the feelings of many a viewer. Her favourite comedians, meanwhile, are Louis C.K. and George Carlin.

She’s warming up, revealing herself to be sweet and friendly, funny and a bit of a laugh, so I ask her to tell a joke. ‘NO! No, no, no, definitely not,’ she squeals. ‘I leave the stand-up to Jack.’

Photo: Jonny Storey