Hong Chau facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Hong Chau
Chau in 2018
Born	Hồng Châu (1979-06-25) June 25, 1979 (age 46) Thailand
Citizenship	American
Education	Boston University College of Communication (BA, 2001)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2006–present
Children	1

Hong Chau (born June 25, 1979) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in movies and television shows. She has received many award nominations for her acting.

Chau earned praise for her role as Ngoc Lan Tran in the movie Downsizing (2017). She also played a nurse named Liz in the movie The Whale (2022). For her work in The Whale, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Chau was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. Her parents were from Vietnam and had to flee their country in the late 1970s. A church in New Orleans helped her family move to the United States. She grew up in New Orleans and studied film studies at Boston University College of Communication. After college, she decided to become an actress.

She has appeared in TV shows like Treme (2010–2013), Watchmen (2019), and Homecoming (2018–2020). She has also starred in movies like Driveways (2019) and The Menu (2022).

Early Life and Education

Hong Chau's parents and two older brothers lived in Vietnam. In 1979, her family fled the country as part of the Vietnamese boat people, a group of refugees who escaped by sea. At the time, her mother was six months pregnant with her. During the escape, her father was shot and badly injured.

Chau was born in a refugee camp in Thailand on June 25, 1979. A Vietnamese Catholic church in New Orleans, Louisiana, sponsored her family, which allowed them to move to the United States. Chau grew up speaking Vietnamese and learned English at school. Her family lived in government housing and used programs that provided low-cost school lunches.

Chau grew up in New Orleans East. She went to Eleanor McMain Secondary School, Benjamin Franklin High School, and the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts. Her parents worked hard, first as dishwashers and later running their own store, to make sure their children could go to college. Chau said her parents were sometimes treated poorly because they were Asian immigrants with strong accents.

Chau received Pell Grants, which are funds from the government to help pay for college. She went to Boston University and first studied creative writing. She later switched to film studies because her parents wanted her to study something more practical. She started acting in other students' short films to help with her shyness and was told she had a talent for it. She graduated in 2001.

After college, Chau worked for PBS, a public television network, and thought about making documentaries. To overcome her shyness, she took public speaking and acting classes. A TV director she met encouraged her to move to Los Angeles to pursue acting, so she did.

As of 2020, she has a daughter. She also has a dog, which is a Rottweiler-Australian Shepherd mix.

Acting Career

2006–2017: Early Roles and Downsizing

Chau in 2016

Chau began her acting career in 2006. She had small roles in TV shows like NCIS and How I Met Your Mother. A bigger role came in the HBO series Treme, which was set in her hometown of New Orleans. Her first movie role was in Inherent Vice in 2014.

In 2017, she had a supporting role in the HBO series Big Little Lies. That same year, she played Ngoc Lan Tran, a Vietnamese activist, in the movie Downsizing. Her performance was a huge success. Critics said she was a standout in the film. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine called her acting "nothing less than an acting triumph."

Her role in Downsizing earned her nominations for many awards, including a Golden Globe Award. Some people criticized the character for speaking in broken English, but Chau explained that the character was "so multifaceted and complex and well-written."

2018–2020: Starring in Movies and TV Shows

After Downsizing, Chau's career grew quickly. In 2018, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the group that gives out the Oscars. She had a supporting role in the Amazon Prime Video series Homecoming.

In 2019, she starred in her first leading roles in the movies Driveways and American Woman. Also in 2019, she played the super-rich Lady Trieu in the HBO series Watchmen. Critics praised her performance in the show.

In 2020, Chau returned for the second season of Homecoming with a bigger role. She also had a voice role as the character Opal Koboi in the movie Artemis Fowl, but her scene was cut from the final film. The deleted scene can be watched on Disney+.

2021–Present: Oscar Nomination for The Whale

Chau at a panel for The Whale in 2022

In 2021, Chau filmed four movies: The Whale, Showing Up, The Menu, and Asteroid City. The director of The Whale, Darren Aronofsky, invited her to try out for the part of Liz, a nurse. She wanted to be in The Menu to work with director Mark Mylod and actor Ralph Fiennes.

The movies were released in 2022. Her performance in The Whale was highly praised. For her role, Chau was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. This was her first Oscar nomination.

In 2023, Chau appeared in an episode of the TV series Poker Face. She also starred as the White House chief of staff in the Netflix series The Night Agent. The show was very popular with viewers.

She also had a scene in the Wes Anderson movie Asteroid City (2023). In 2024, she appeared in the unusual film Kinds of Kindness and the action movie The Instigators.

Acting Credits

Film

Television

Theatre

Awards and Nominations

Chau's role in the 2017 movie Downsizing earned her nominations for many awards. These included the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Many people thought she would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 90th Academy Awards, but she was not.

For her supporting role in the 2022 film The Whale, Chau was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the first time. She was also nominated for other major awards, like the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and another Screen Actors Guild Award.

See also

In Spanish: Hong Chau para niños

• Asian Americans in arts and entertainment
• List of Academy Award winners and nominees of Asian descent