Profile | The Joy Luck Club star Kieu Chinh, 87, on her rocky road to stardom and new roles
The Vietnamese-American actress has been busy recently, appearing in TV series Dope Thief on Apple TV+ and movie Control Freak on Disney+
Kieu Chinh is a little pressed for time.
It is a Sunday afternoon and the 87-year-old Vietnamese-American actress is preparing for a trip the next day from her home in Huntington Beach in California to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. There she would be doing filming for Chrysalis, a feature film based on the life of the Vietnamese-American artist and sculptor Daniel K Winn.
“I wish we had more time,” Chinh says. “There is so much to talk about.”
Directed by Ridley Scott, Dope Thief is a crime drama starring Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura as two friends in Philadelphia who pose as federal agents to rob drug dealers. Chinh plays the criminal-matriarch grandma of a character named Pham (played by Dustin Nguyen), a drug trafficker.
In Shal Ngo’s body horror thriller Control Freak, she plays the aunt of Valerie (Kelly Marie Tran), a motivational speaker who develops a demonic body itch. Chinh sports over-the-top make-up and exaggerated lashes, and constantly has a cigarette in hand.