Chin Han - Singaporean born talent.

Chin Han has long been a regular on-screen presence in both Asia and North America, thanks to scene-stealing roles in films such as The Dark Knight, Contagion and Restless. This year, he appears in American Born Chinese, an innovative new series from Disney+ that blends Chinese mythology with culture-clash comedy and coming-of-age drama.

In the decades following independence, as Singapore focused on industrial growth, there was little investment in the arts. The young Chin Han’s love of cinema was therefore nourished by American rather than homegrown films, including some that less open-minded parents might not have considered suitable viewing. “I went to the movies a lot as a kid, and my parents really facilitated that. They would talk to us about the movies before and after, but we’d be taken to things like The Godfather and The Exorcist, which thematically is still a very challenging film. Those were the kind of parents that I had – they were very supportive of my imagination.”

Inspired to take up acting, Chin Han found that there were few prospects in Singapore’s film industry, which was not to regain its momentum until the late 1990s, and he turned instead to the thriving theatre scene, where he made his name. Having last performed on stage over twenty years ago, he admits that his memories are now rather rose-tinted. “I miss the musty smell, the clacking of chairs when you hear audiences come in, the murmurs, the responsiveness, the chatter that goes on before and after a production. But every time I think of going back to the theatre, I think of the eight shows a week, a three-month stint somewhere ... it becomes a little daunting. So I do miss it, but only because I romanticize it.”

“I had never worked that way before. It’s not miming, you’re just feeling it. It’s transmitted through looks, or breaths, or anything that’s imperceptible. I found that very freeing”

— Chin Han on Gus Van Sant

Following further success on Singaporean television, he landed his first US film role in 1998, with his status in Hollywood secured ten years later by his performance as Lau in The Dark Knight, directed by Christopher Nolan. “His movies are like puzzles. When you go on set with him, his direction is deceptively simple; it is very clear, it is very precise, which I think belies the complexity of his structures.” Since then, he has worked with such celebrated directors as his friend Roland Emmerich, who directed him in 2012 and Independence Day: Resurgence. He soon realized that the so-called “master of disaster” is “an incredibly erudite person: he reads a lot, he’s very knowledgeable about history and international affairs. You would think someone like that would be only interested in explosions.” Another director to overturn his preconceptions was Steven Soderbergh. “Even after all the success he’s had, there’s such an independent film feeling about him still. You will find him sitting at the end of the day at the bar with his producer, going through footage – very informal, very friendly.” The biggest surprise, however, was the working method of Gus Van Sant, who shot each scene of Restless twice: once as scripted, then a second time without any dialogue. “I had never worked that way before. It’s not miming, you’re just feeling it. It’s transmitted through looks, or breaths, or anything that’s imperceptible. I found that very freeing – what do you do when you are free of the crutches of words when you’re working on a scene? He’s quite the original.”

So far, Chin Han’s own directorial experience has been confined to theatre but a move to film direction is in his sights. “That’s something that I’m working actively towards, because I have such a fondness for actors. As a co-star you do interact with them, and it is a lively exchange of feelings and impulses, but as a director you have a bigger picture to take care of.” But he’s wary of the financial stakes involved and conscious that big budgets can discourage innovation. “A movie can cost $100 million, $200 million, $300 million even, which is mind-boggling! The higher the capitalization on a movie, the greater the challenge for risk-taking – so we go back to tried and tested.” His best hope for the future lies in the potential of technology to facilitate inventive filmmaking on lower budgets. “Soderbergh himself made a movie on a phone [2018 psychological horror Unsane]. So there are many, many possibilities now for people who are interested in telling stories: you can edit a movie on your computer, you can colour correct; with the technology on your phone, you can film under low lighting conditions. I think that’s very promising.”

This year, Chin Han returns to the small screen as Simon Wang, father of the titular American Born Chinese, Jin. Transposing supernatural elements of Chinese folk tales to the more familiar TV terrain of an American high school, the show sees teenager Jin negotiating his dual identities as a second-generation immigrant. Chin Han’s character only appears in a few panels of the award-winning graphic novel from which it was adapted but the series creators were keen to explore the first-generation experience further, he explains. “Through a course of a few conversations, they gave me an idea of where they wanted to go with it and helped flesh out the themes of identity and voice.”

With a cast that he describes as “a who’s who of Asian and Asian American stars”, American Born Chinese was an opportunity for Chin Han to work with Michelle Yeoh for a second time (having co-starred in the 2013 film Final Recipe) as well as new colleagues: “Daniel Wu, whose work in Hong Kong I have seen for more than a decade; Ke Huy Quan from The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which to this day is actually one of my favourite Indiana Jones movies. We all had heard about each other but hadn’t crossed paths. So we get to work with people we’ve wanted to work with.” The series also introduces a new generation of Asian American talent. “The kids were quite a revelation,” he says. “It was very, very fun.”

Nevertheless, there were challenges for someone who is more comfortable with the tightly circumscribed film format. “As an actor, I like having a beginning, middle and an end, so that you can chart the course of your character. Whereas with a television show you have a rough idea of an arc, but you’re going week to week to week, playing the same character. I find that openness a bit more challenging. American Born Chinese has that feel where you are in a marathon instead of a sprint. For a movie, you’re in a sprint: you go and then you end at some point.”

However, there is a continuity between American Born Chinese and much of Chin Han’s film work through their shared origins in graphic fiction. “It’s not by design really, but if you look at my filmography it almost feels like there’s some intelligent design going on there – from The Dark Knight to Captain America: The Winter Soldier to even Ghost in the Shell, which is anime, and Mortal Kombat, which then takes us into the video game world.” Chin Han returns to that world next, with filming for Mortal Kombat 2 soon to get underway in Australia. “It’s a bigger movie [with] more characters and it’ll be fun to play. I spent this past year inhabiting the character of Simon Wang in American Born Chinese where I don’t fight at all. I get to be dad, I wear dad clothing, in fact I even put on some weight to get that dad bod! So it’s nice now to start the physical conditioning for Mortal Kombat and to get into the skin of Shang Tsung. It’s nice to switch gears.”

American Born Chinese is out now on Disney+.

Author: Rachel Goodyear