As Gemma Chan prepares to channel Hollywood’s first Chinese-American movie star for a biopic, she’s looking forward to bringing Anna May Wong‘s life and legacy to the big screen.
The actress recently shared news on her upcoming biopic, which she said is “still in development” with producer Nina Yang Bongiovi and Working Title Films, for which Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang is adapting Graham Russell Gao Hodges’ 2012 biography Anna May Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to Hollywood Legend.
“We have a script,” she told the Associated Press of the project, which was first announced in 2022. “Hopefully more soon.”
“She’s an icon. She was a woman ahead of her time. I feel like she never properly got her due, and I feel like it really resonates today, her story. Who gets to call this place home? Who gets to be American? That’s something she was wrestling with her entire career and her entire life, so I feel that it’s a really resonant story.”
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In March 2022, Chan was announced to star as Wong and executive produce the biopic, with Bongiovi producing alongside Working Title co-chairs Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. Wong’s niece Anna Wong is also attached as a consultant, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Chan’s update comes after Deadline exclusively reported in May that Xin Zhilei will portray Wong in another biopic for Fundamental Films, entitled Sunset Boulevard – The Anna May Wong Story.
Anna May Wong was the first Chinese-American movie star in Hollywood. Born Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905, her career spanned both silent film and talkies.
After being cast in stereotypical supporting roles in her early Hollywood career, Wong relocated to Europe, where she had notable parts in Piccadilly, Chin Chin Chow, Daughter of the Dragon and Josef von Sternberg’s Shanghai Express in 1932 with Marlene Dietrich.
Wong went on to portray Chinese-Americans in a positive light in roles in the late 1930s, returning to the spotlight after WW2 and in the 1950s with several television appearances. She died on Feb. 3, 1961, leaving behind a lasting legacy as a fashion icon, trailblazer, and champion for the representation of Asian-Americans in films.
