She’s Oscar-nominated, but Hong Chau hopes to stay an underdog

LOS ANGELES – Although Hong Chau received her first Oscar nomination in January for playing Brendan Fraser’s caretaker in the

Darren Aronofsky drama The Whale,

it took a while for the accolade to sink in.

In 2017, after a breakout role in Alexander Payne’s Downsizing, she had been hotly tipped for a nomination that never came, the sort of anticlimax that can make one want to detach from the hubbub of awards season altogether.

This time around, there was a better outcome, although she is still sorting out exactly how she feels about it. “My honest reaction to the nomination was just relief,” she said.

Chau, 43, did not dream of becoming an Oscar-nominated actress. Born in a refugee camp to Vietnamese parents, she grew up in New Orleans and majored in creative writing and film studies at Boston University.

After she signed up for an improv class to cure her shyness, her teacher encouraged her to pursue performing. Chau moved to Los Angeles to seek parts, but success initially proved elusive and sceptical casting directors told her that booking anything more than a day-player role was beyond her grasp.

“After a few years of trying, you think, ‘Is it really worth it to try to dedicate my life to this?’” Chau said. “But what kept me going was the delusional hope that I’d get to work on a cool, weird movie because those were the movies that I liked. I just kept hoping that something would happen and, thankfully, it did.”

After following her big-screen debut in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice (2014) with Downsizing, Chau’s career caught fire. She has been a scene-stealer ever since, in projects such as HBO’s superhero drama series Watchmen (2019) and the recent horror comedy The Menu, in which she plays a coolly hostile maitre d’.

Chau will next be seen in a raft of auteur-driven films that include Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City and And from Yorgos Lanthimos, but in the meantime, audiences are still discovering her work in The Whale, in which her character, Liz, tends to Fraser’s 600-pound (272kg) recluse with a whole lot of tough love.

Now that the dust has settled from your Oscar nomination, how are you feeling?

The things that have touched me the most have been messages from people who have known me since before I wanted to be an actor. My friend from high school called from work and she was like, “Oh my God, I’m shaking right now. I’m hiding in the closet to talk to you because I can’t control my body right now.”

I was like, “Why?” But she was starting to tear up on the phone and it made me get emotional because she was like, “I remember all of those years ago when I went to your improv shows.” I hadn’t thought about that in so long, and stuff like that is meaningful to me.

The rest of it, I don’t know. My whole career identity has been about being an underdog and trying to scrap my way into getting parts.

Do you mean you were perceived as an underdog or you felt like one?

I felt like an underdog, always really excited and grateful to be a part of things. Now, it’s just a weird thing where I feel like, “Do I have to step up? Am I going to be considered a veteran now?”

I still feel so new and I’m still learning, so I hope this doesn’t mean that people think I know what I’m doing. I really admire people who are pros, but at the same time, I hope I never become a pro, if that makes sense.

You shot The Whale in early 2021, not long after you had given birth to your first child. Was it an easy yes?

I was fully anticipating not working for the first year while I was a mother, so I was surprised when my agent sent me the script for The Whale.

I almost didn’t want to read it because I didn’t want to get attached, and then when I read the script, I felt even more strongly that this wasn’t the right time in my life to tackle something like that because it would take so much work. Also, everything that I’d done had been a specifically Asian character, and because this character wasn’t, I thought the casting net for it must be so wide. I just didn’t want to throw my hat in the ring.

About a week passed and my agent came back to me and was like, “They really want to see you. Is this something you want to let go?” During that time, I had thought about it, like, “Oh my gosh, it is a really amazing story and script. I don’t know, can I do it?”

They asked for three scenes on tape for the audition. I told my agent, “Here’s one scene. That’s all I had time to do. I think he should know after one scene whether I’m the right girl for him or not.” But Darren called me right after he saw it, somehow my baby cooperated and we were able to put another scene on tape very quickly.

Once you accepted the role, how did you feel?

Honestly, I felt like I wanted to barf. I was thinking, “Wow, I’m so tired. How can I possibly be on set and say all these lines? This is more dialogue than I’ve had in all of the things I’ve done combined.” Thankfully, my husband stepped up and took care of our baby while I was at work and allowed me to do it. And he was the one who also pushed me to throw my hat in the ring and said he would be there to support me. NYTIMES