‘The Whale’ Star Hong Chau On Going From Wanting To Stay Home And Do Nothing To Making Four Films: “It Was A Really Nutty Year For Me”
deadline.comHong Chau stole the show as a fierce one-legged Vietnamese activist in Alexander Payne’s 2017 star-packed social satire Downsizing.
Now, in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, she’s doing it again: this time she plays Liz, a no-nonsense caregiver who helps reclusive 600-pound English professor Charlie (Brendan Fraser) manage his failing health while he struggles to reconnect with his estranged and thoroughly unlikable teenage daughter (Sadie Sink).
As the story unfolds, the unexpected reasons for Liz’s dedication to Charlie are gradually revealed, and Chau’s scene-stealing performance — subtle and heartbreaking — balances the pain of Liz’s loss with a poignant frustration at her own impotence. DEADLINE: A film like The Whale is such a rarity these days as chamber pieces with a small cast don’t make it to the big screen anymore. HONG CHAU: You’re absolutely right.
It’s really rare to see a movie with such a small, intimate cast. I think nowadays, maybe it’s for financial reasons, movies seem to be really sprawling, packing as many famous people as you can into one movie.
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