KIEU CHINH, STAR OF THE SYMPATHIZER AND THE JOY LUCK CLUB, REFLECTS ON HER 50-YEAR CAREER IN HOLLYWOOD

In LA recently, Kieu Chinh saw something she'd never seen before: an enormous billboard on Sunset Boulevard emblazoned with the face of a Vietnamese actor, with the name of a Vietnamese author printed underneath.

The actor was Hoa Xuande, the Australian star of the new HBO series The Sympathizer, an adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

It was a proud moment for Chinh, the 86-year-old actor best known for her role in the 1993 film The Joy Luck Club.

"It's the first time in history that [a Vietnamese actor] is on a poster that big," Chinh tells ABC RN's The Screen Show.

"Vietnamese [people] are very excited to see the show."

Chinh also appears in The Sympathizer, playing the beloved mother of a South Vietnamese Major who is among the exodus of refugees fleeing to the United States after the fall of Saigon.

The story of displacement, emigration and divided loyalties resonated with Chinh, who also fled Vietnam.

"The Vietnam War is a very complicated story to talk about. Then, it was the longest war in American history, [lasting for] more than 15 years," she says.

But Chinh believes The Sympathizer's attempts to explore the era's complexity make it compelling viewing.

"It's very good for entertainment," she says.

"The novel was wonderful, and yet the production has incredible script writers who create each character … in a richer way."

The Sympathizer takes a nuanced approach to the conflict, deliberately refraining from taking sides.

"It doesn't matter [who is the] winner or loser," Chinh says.

"The big loss here is the innocent people on both sides, and the majority of them are women and children."

An emotional connection

In The Sympathizer, Hoa Xuande (Hungry Ghosts; Cowboy Bebop) plays the Captain, a North Vietnamese spy who serves in the South Vietnamese army before emigrating to the US.

The cast includes Sandra Oh as Ms Sofia Mori (a feminist in a love triangle, coming to terms with her own Asian American identity) and Academy Award-winner Robert Downey Jr, who plays four characters in the series, including a CIA agent.

Renowned South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden; Decision to Leave) is the co-showrunner and directed three of the series' seven episodes.

Chinh says Chan-wook felt a strong emotional connection with the story.

"He said, 'Kieu Chinh … I'm so close with your situation, your people. Korea is similar to Vietnam. My country has [also] been divided into two parts, north and south.'"

The cast and crew quickly adapted to communicating with Chan-wook, who doesn't speak Vietnamese, through an interpreter.

"He made us feel so comfortable," Chinh says.

"He looked deep into your eyes. We could see his reaction, but we heard somebody else's voice.

"At first, it was a little bit difficult for me, but then I got used to it. I could feel whatever he was going to say before I heard the voice of the interpreter."

An unexpected lifeline

In Vietnam, Chinh was a well-known movie star and hosted a television talk show, interviewing many visiting celebrities from the US during the war.

In 1975, before the fall of Saigon, Chinh was one of thousands of Vietnamese trying to flee their home country.

In desperation, she flicked through her star-studded address book looking for a lifeline. She called her former co-star Burt Reynolds (from 1965's Operation CIA) and friend William Holden but couldn't get through.

Eventually, she called the last name left in her address book: Tippi Hedren, an actor famous for her roles in The Birds and Marnie, who had appeared on Chinh's talk show in 1965.

To Chinh's amazement, Hedren picked up the phone.

"I said, 'Tippi, Tippi, this is Kieu Chinh, the movie star from Vietnam. Do you remember me?'" recalls Chinh.

"I was crying like a child."

After assuring Chinh she did remember her, Hedren listened to her plight.

"She said, 'Don't worry. I will take care of everything. Stop crying. You will be OK.' Three days later, I received an aeroplane ticket with all the important sponsorship papers that she signed for me to come into the United States," Chinh says.

Hedren's daughter Melanie Griffith had only recently moved out of the family home in LA to live with her fiancé Don Johnson, and Chinh stayed in the newly vacant room.

Hedren lent Chinh clothes, drove her around LA and took her to events such as the Jaws premiere — which unexpectedly led to Chinh getting her break in the US.

While the movie premiere was a glamorous party, the despondent Chinh wasn't in the mood to enjoy it.

A guest — who turned out to be Burt Metcalfe, the executive producer of M*A*S*H — spotted her standing by herself in the corner.

A few months later, Chinh's agent was bemused to receive a phone call offering Chinh an audition on the hit show.

When she turned up, however, there was no audition. "They just asked questions about my past," Chinh recalls.

To the surprise of both Chinh and her agent, Metcalfe offered her a part playing Alan Alda's love interest in an episode that aired in 1977.

It marked the beginning of Chinh's long and successful career in Hollywood.

Life imitating art

Another stroke of good fortune led to Chinh landing a role in the 1993 blockbuster The Joy Luck Club, an adaptation of Amy Tan's bestselling novel of the same name, which follows the lives of four Chinese women and their American daughters.

Chinh was auditioning for a role in an Oliver Stone film when the casting director of The Joy Luck Club, who was running auditions across the hall, pulled her aside. They asked her to meet with Amy Tan and director Wayne Wang.

As with M*A*S*H, there was no audition. Instead, Tan and Wang quizzed Chinh about her past and sent her home with the script.

When she returned the next day, Wang asked her which of the four main characters she would most like to play.

She chose Suyuan Woo, a mother who lives with the guilt of abandoning her twin baby daughters in the aftermath of the Japanese invasion of China.

Chinh was drawn to the similarities between her and Suyuan's stories.

Chinh's mother was killed during the Allied bombing of Hanoi in 1943. When she was 15, her father, a former government official, sent her to South Vietnam. He stayed behind in Hanoi to search for his son, who had joined the Communist side.

She never saw her father again.

Filming the moment Suyuan abandons her babies, leaving them under an enormous tree, was very moving for Chinh.

"I was abandoned by my father," Chinh says.

"And now, in The Joy Luck Club, I am the mother who abandoned my children."

At the end of the first take, Wang put his hand on her shoulder.

"I asked him, 'Take two?' He said, 'No, can't be better'," Chinh recalls.

"So there was only one take … for the most memorable scene for me in The Joy Luck Club."