Joan Chen Talks Dìdi and Judge Dredd on The Awards Tour Podcast

This week on the Awards Tour podcast, our host Jacqueline Coley sits down with award-winning actor and director Joan Chen, who stars in the 2024 Sundance Film Festival audience award winner Dìdi. In Dìdi, Chen plays a Taiwanese immigrant mother to a precocious 13-year-old boy trying to navigate life and friendship in the suburbs of northern California.

(Photo by Courtesy of Focus Features)

A throwback period piece to the early ’00s, writer-director Sean Wang‘s Dìdi tackles family dynamics, racism, and middle school growing pains all during the early stages of YouTube and social media. During the chat, Chen discusses how she got involved with Dìdi, including receiving a heartfelt letter directly from Wang. In it, he detailed how her character mirrored her experience of raising first-generation American children. We also discuss other iconic roles in her legendary career, including a memorable fight scene with Judge Dredd and her critically panned but cozy  directorial debut Autumn in New York.

Please enjoy this preview of our conversation with Joan Chen and watch the entire discussion in the video above.

Jacqueline Coley for Rotten Tomatoes: Tell me how you found this story, which again feels like a time capsule back to the early 2000s?

Joan Chen: I received this beautiful letter from Sean that came with the script. The letter was talking about his relationship with his mom, his intention of this coming-of-age film, also being a love letter to his own mom, and I was moved. And then I read the script. It was just a solid, beautiful, really well-written script, and no doubt that’s always the best beginning. And so that’s how I got involved.

(Photo by Courtesy of Focus Features)

RT: I heard that you found a lot of parallels between yourself and your character since you raised two American-born, Chinese-American children. Can you tell us about those parallels? 

Chen: When I was reading this script, I was like, “Oh wow, my God!, This is exactly how I was feeling.” I am an immigrant mother who raised two American children, and I remember how unsure I was. [I was] making a lot of decisions based on fear. It’s like, if I didn’t do this right, then they’ll never get into a good school. They’re never going to find a job. They will not find a husband. Everything you’re doubting yourself, and whenever you feel like they’re unhappy, you blame yourself. Sometimes, you didn’t understand what caused their unhappiness.