I know what actors fear, what they like; I know how to get things out of them and I listen to them better, since I’ve been there. – Joan Chen
There are a lot of stereotypes to be broken which I think a lot of us are doing. What I do is, as soon as people try to pin me down to one kind of part, I’ll play a very different kind of role, so it explodes that stereotype. – Joan Chen
I will always have a career. I believe in working. I don’t believe that taking care of your house and children is enough for a woman. You don’t feel complete. – Joan Chen
I don’t want to tell people what I make. It’s a lot more than I ever dreamed of as a kid. I never think about it. – Joan Chen
The difference between me and American-born actors is that I came here with the expectation of not being treated fairly. – Joan Chen
When you feel so strongly about something and other people feel equally strongly, you have to feel stronger about it in order to succeed. – Joan Chen
For the past few years, I was the more visible Asian performer, and I think it gave young girls a kind of role model showing it’s possible to actually reach success doing movies. – Joan Chen
There is no theoretical study of motherhood. You know, before I became a mother, I did play a mother, but I was like – I was more thinking of my own mother. I was doing my mother. – Joan Chen
Physical hunger and physical poverty is something I could only imagine. I’ve been poor when I was in China… As kids we never had to starve, but just didn’t have enough meat, enough rice. – Joan Chen
There are many ways you can make money. Certain ways will make you happy, certain other ways will make other people happy. But if you go in because there’s money in there, you’re bound to fail, bound to fail! – Joan Chen
The romantic love we feel toward the opposite sex is probably one extra help from God to bring you together, but that’s it. All the rest of it, the true love, is the test. – Joan Chen
Acting for me is not a bad habit like smoking that I must make an effort to quit. I love acting; I love directing. – Joan Chen
As an actress I find the most enjoyable part of acting is really just to please the director. I just want to please my director. – Joan Chen
Beauty is the result of having been through an experience all the way through to the end – therefore it has a poignancy. Beauty that is singular always comes from following an experience to the point where you can go no further. – Joan Chen
All Asian parents are into your children having a respectable, decent stable job. Acting was unimaginable to my parents. – Joan Chen
How do you explain certain physical qualities that somehow sell on screen? You’re born with it… Certain people are just more watchable, and I was more watchable, but I don’t think I understood acting or drama very well when I was a kid. – Joan Chen
I would never offer advice without the person asking for it. I, in general, don’t believe in giving advice, actually, as a human being I don’t. – Joan Chen
