Superhuman

Chan grew up with her parents and younger sister Helen in Kent. Her mom immigrated to the UK from mainland China at the age of eleven and her dad from Hong Kong in his late twenties, and theirs was one of the few families of color in their community. She recalls feeling “like I was kind of between two cultures” as a child and not knowing how to respond when neighbors would compliment her on her “good English”.

She also remembers times when she just wanted to assimilate, to “blend into the background” in public while her tiny yet voracious grandma haggled at the top of her lungs on shopping trips. “No one could out-haggle her, though,” the actor chuckles. It’s become one of the character traits that she embraces most in her family as a grown-up – we share the irony of having wanted to blend in when we were young and our cultural identity now being the badge that we are proudest to wear. She is close to her family – her mom still makes her and her sister a stocking every Christmas, which is something she’s looking forward to on the other side of her press tour.

I wonder how Chan’s parents have responded to her global fame. “They’re wonderfully constant, which I really love, but they’re also not overly impressed by anything,” she says. “I do know they’re incredibly proud. And more than anything, they’re relieved that both my sister and I are okay.” She’s referring, I think, to the moment when she walked away from a law career to attend Drama Centre London and her parents were nervous for her job security. It was almost a decade later that Chan landed her first major breakout role on Channel 4’s sci-fi drama Humans as Mia, a robot with a big heart.

Her parents chose 陈静 [Chén Jìng] for her Chinese name, and 陈宁 [Chén Ning] for her sister. “[The combination of 宁静 Níngjìng] means tranquillity, or quiet,” she explains. “So my parents called us ‘peace and quiet’.” She admits, laughing, that’s not what her parents got while they were growing up – in fact, quite the opposite.

“I love the fact that it doesn’t seem to be people elbowing each other out of the way anymore,” Chan considers of the steady and incremental change she has seen in the industry. “It’s one of the best things about the past few years; it feels like the doors have finally opened a little bit and people are being allowed to tell their own stories and the stories of their histories and communities. And, naturally, the more we do that, the more we realize what we have in common with each other.”

Not one to shy away from a statement on the red carpet – Chan’s 2019 Academy Awards pink Valentino dress with pockets made fashion headlines for both its glamour and practicality – Chan promises that her upcoming press-tour wardrobe for Eternals will be “otherworldly”. She has been mastering red-carpet style for more than a decade now, fusing emerging designers with global brands, frequently shining a spotlight on Asian talent and often topping best-dressed lists.

Her latest lead role, in the 26th film in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, sees her star alongside Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek, and directed by the only female director of color to win an Academy Award, Chloé Zhao – who also co-wrote the screenplay. Zhao and Chan bonded onset over their East Asian heritage, their upbringings and their mutual love of food, and Chan found herself enthralled by the filmmaker’s ambitious creative vision for the movie. Of the 10 central characters, Sersi [Chan’s character] was cast last. Having previously played Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel, also part of the MCU, Chan didn’t expect to be brought back to this universe, so she was surprised when she got the call to do a taping in 2019. Captain Marvel had just been released and filming for Eternals started a few months later.

It is the first time that an actor has been cast for a different role in the same realm and Chan points out that Sersi has been living on planet Earth for 7,000 years so, at some point, the characters could have crossed paths. Her casting became clear when she started filming, though. “[When I met] the other Eternals cast members and we started working, it made sense. I saw why they had to cast us because they had picked actors who embodied some of the inherent traits of each character.”

The character of Sersi is best known for her affinity for humans, having lived happily among them for thousands of years. “Someone who has been on earth for the past 7,000 years and [has] seen everything that’s happened with humanity: the good and the bad, everything in between… The question [one starts to ask] is: is humanity worth saving?” says Chan of the central issue that the Eternals have to grapple with in the film.

Chan and Sersi are in agreement that the answer to this is yes. “We at least have to try,” Chan continues. “We can at least try to fix things and come up with the solutions. That’s our responsibility for having got us here in the first place.” Alongside her activism and advocacy for Stop ESEA Hate, the actor’s philanthropic endeavors include being a UNICEF UK ambassador and, during lockdown last year, she and her boyfriend, actor Dominic Cooper, contributed to the pandemic relief efforts by delivering meals to key workers.

Chan considers a final trait that she thinks she shares with her latest character: “We both have layers, I suppose,” she says, “like an onion.” This is certainly true of Chan – the Hollywood star, humanitarian, sometime superhero, fashion icon and cat-lover, who has hopes for real change in the world.

Eternals is in cinemas from November 5 (US and UK)

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