• Hong Chau was shocked to hear her name mentioned in the Best Supporting Actress category.
• She received positive reviews and a Golden Globe nomination for the Matt Damon movie.
• Regardless of whether Chau wins an Oscar on March 12, she is planning ahead with an open mind.

When the Oscar nominations were revealed last month, Hong Chau was shocked to hear her name mentioned in the Best Supporting Actress category.

The actress, who plays Brendan Fraser’s co-star in the film The Whale, didn’t plan to wake up early to see them live on television, but she and her husband were up by five in the morning because of their young daughter, age 2, and their dying dog, age 15. She tells news, “We had coffee in bed and watched.” “I was unable to digest it. I was shocked to my core.”

Prosecco and doughnuts that her husband hurried out to acquire were served to them as a celebration. Soon after, Chau continues, “I found myself outside in the rain conversing with a man who will provide us with a foundation repair cost estimate. So both an exciting and mundane day were experienced.”

She also believed that the day would never come. In order to become one of Hollywood’s most talked-about actors, Chau, 43, had to travel a challenging path. She arrived in the country as a small child together with her parents, two elder brothers, and other Vietnamese refugees.

She was born into poverty and struggled with terrible shyness and an unresponsive industry as an adult. In The Whale, she plays the tough-loving best friend of a 600-lb. man (Fraser) on a path of self-destruction. She toiled hard for ten years before landing movies that put her on the map, such as 2017’s Downsizing and now.

“This is wonderful since my entire professional persona has revolved around being the underdog and attempting to enter the room. Before it became an overnight success, it took years.”

When Chau’s parents came to the United States, they made New Orleans their home. Chau describes her parents, who took jobs washing dishes to make ends meet and eventually ran a convenience store, as having no money and not speaking English.

They were able to send all three of their children to college despite the financial challenges.

Chau attended Boston University to study film with the goal of working in the industry. She experimented with acting, but just to support her friends in their school movies. The “introvert” who prided herself on having “an incapacity to speak to people” enrolled in improv and public-speaking workshops after graduation to help her come out of her shell.

She claims, “I wanted to throw up before every lesson, but I made myself go.”

She met a TV director along the road who suggested she relocate to Los Angeles after she discovered she had a talent for acting. “I’m delighted I made the leap,” says Chau.

She was employed by PBS’s accounting division in the middle of the 2000s while looking for the “fringe” projects she so desperately desired. These were difficult to locate. She reflects that “I was locked in the youth department at this agency and going out on auditions for Nickelodeon shows” despite having appeared in 13 episodes of the HBO drama series Treme.

She even once published her phone number on a trade website after leaving her agency. I was obstinate, she admits.

Her perseverance paid off. Downsizing started when a casting call came in about a part in an Off-Broadway show. She received positive reviews and a Golden Globe nomination for the Matt Damon movie. Following roles on shows like The Watchmen, she made appearances in two high-profile films last year: The Menu, in which she portrayed a tough restaurant manager, and The Whale.

With four Asian actors competing for awards, her Oscar candidature is a part of a record-breaking year for AAPI prominence. Yet, Chau claims that up until lately, “representation wasn’t something that I thought about much.”

She says, “I think this was a pretty single mission for me when I was first starting out in terms of I just want to work on these quirky movies that I adore, and getting to work with independent directors and individuals who do movies that aren’t particularly big movies. “That was initially my goal. As a result, I never gave it much thought in terms of representation or popular culture because, in my opinion, the things that drew me in were so strange and fringe.”

Others are now approaching me and saying “Thanks for all of the fantastic work that you’ve been doing,” she says, “but I guess it hasn’t really started until these nominations have been announced.

She attended a Lunar New Year dinner that Vice President Kamala Harris threw at her residence in Washington, D.C., in January, and that caused a change in her perspective. Chau recollects that the speaker “delivered this wonderful speech about how to become more focused as a group and to support each other up.” It simply caused me to think, “Oh, I’ve got to think more in terms of that.

Regardless of whether Chau wins an Oscar on March 12, she is planning ahead with an open mind. She says, “I hope more things keep happening that surprise me. And I hope I’m prepared for the occasion.

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