Gemma Chan: The Life Story Behind the Marvel Star

Gemma Chan had a law degree from Oxford University, a training contract at a London law firm, and a clear path to a comfortable, respectable career. She gave it up. She walked away from the law, enrolled at the Drama Centre London, and started again at the bottom of a profession that pays badly, rejects most people, and offers no guarantees. That decision, made in her early twenties, is the hinge of her whole story, because everything that followed — Doctor Who, Sherlock, Humans, Crazy Rich Asians, Marvel — happened only because she was willing to throw away a safe future for an uncertain one. Most people do not make that choice. Most people who do make it regret it. Chan did not regret it, and the reason is not luck but a particular kind of stubbornness: she had decided, as a teenager, that she wanted to act, and she had spent years putting the decision off because it seemed impractical. Oxford was the delay. The law firm was the delay. Drama school was the moment she stopped delaying, and the career that followed is the proof that the delay was worth it.

The Law Degree, the Training Contract, and Walking Away

Southwark, in south London, gives 29 November 1982 as Gemma Chan’s birth date, and the household she grew up in was one in which education was taken very seriously. Her parents were immigrants from Hong Kong: her father was an engineer who worked on the Hong Kong subway system before the family moved to Britain, and her mother was a pharmacist. The family lived in South London, in a house where Chinese and English were both spoken, and where the expectation was that the children would study hard and get good jobs. Chan did exactly that. She attended Newstead Wood School in Orpington, a girls’ grammar school in South London, and she did well enough to study law at Worcester College, Oxford, one of the most prestigious universities in the world. After graduating, she took a training contract at the London law firm Slaughter and May, which is one of the most competitive places a young lawyer can work. She has said that she was a shy child, and that she did not think about acting until she was an adult, which is unusual for an actor: most of them know from childhood. For Chan, the realisation came late, and when it came, it was decisive. She left the law firm, enrolled at the Drama Centre London, and trained as an actress, starting a second career from scratch in her early twenties. The law degree was not wasted: it taught her to think clearly, to argue a case, and to understand contracts, skills that have served her well in an industry where actors are often taken advantage of.

Doctor Who, Sherlock, and the Small Parts That Teach the Craft

Chan’s early television work was the ordinary grind of a young British actress, and the parts she played were small but well chosen. In 2009 she appeared in Doctor Who, in the episode The Waters of Mars, playing Mia Bennett, a member of the crew of a Mars base, opposite David Tennant as the Doctor. The episode is one of the most acclaimed of the modern series, and Chan’s part, though small, put her in front of a large audience. In 2010 she appeared in Sherlock, the BBC’s modern adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, playing Soo Lin Yao in the episode The Blind Banker, a part that required her to play a woman who is frightened and who knows more than she is saying. She also appeared in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, the ITV drama about a high-class escort, and in Fresh Meat, the Channel 4 comedy about university students. None of these parts was large, and none of them made her famous, but they did something important: they proved to casting directors that she was reliable, professional, and capable of adjusting to very different kinds of material. She also appeared in films during these years, including Exam in 2009, a low-budget thriller about eight candidates for a job, in which she played one of the candidates. The early years were slow, and they were not glamorous, but they gave her a foundation that the later fame was built on: she had learned how a set works, how a camera reads a face, and how to do the job properly, without fuss.

Humans: Mia, Anita, and the Robot Who Learned to Feel

In 2015, Chan was cast as Mia, who is also known as Anita, in Humans, the Channel 4 and AMC science-fiction series about androids, known as synths, who live and work alongside humans. The part was a breakthrough, and it is worth explaining why. Mia is a synth who has become conscious, who can think and feel, and who is trying to protect her family of other conscious synths from humans who want to destroy them. The role required Chan to play a character who is, at first, a machine: she moves precisely, she speaks without emotion, and she does what she is told. As the series goes on, Mia learns to feel, and Chan had to show that learning without making it sudden or sentimental. The performance is built on small changes: a glance that lasts a fraction longer, a voice that softens by a degree, a movement that becomes less mechanical. The series ran for three seasons, from 2015 to 2018, and it was praised for its writing and its performances, and Chan’s was central to its success. Humans made her known to a wider audience, and it proved that she could carry a series, because Mia is the moral centre of the story, and the audience has to believe in her for the whole series to work. It also showed that she could play a character who is not human, which is a particular skill: the actor has to make the audience care about a machine, and Chan did it.

Crazy Rich Asians: Astrid Leong and the Scene That Stole the Film

In 2018, Chan appeared in Crazy Rich Asians, the film adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s novel about a Singaporean billionaire family, directed by Jon M. Chu. She played Astrid Leong, a wealthy, elegant woman whose marriage is falling apart because her husband is jealous of her success and her money. The film was a major commercial success, earning more than 200 million dollars worldwide, and it was praised for being the first Hollywood film with an all-Asian cast in twenty-five years. Chan’s performance was one of the most talked-about in the film, and the scene that people remember is the one in which Astrid, after discovering her husband’s infidelity, goes to a jeweller and buys a pair of earrings, and the camera watches her face as she decides that she is worth more than the marriage. The scene is quiet, and it is powerful, and it showed that Chan could steal a film without raising her voice. Astrid is a character who has everything — money, beauty, status — and who is unhappy, and Chan played that unhappiness without making it pathetic. The film made her famous in a way that Humans had not, because it was a global hit, and it gave her a reputation as an actress who could play glamour and pain at the same time. It also put her at the centre of a conversation about representation in Hollywood, a conversation she has been part of ever since.

Captain Marvel, Eternals, and Two Different Marvel Roles

Chan’s relationship with Marvel is unusual, because she has played two different characters in the same cinematic universe, which is something Marvel rarely allows. In 2019 she played Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel, a Kree sniper and a member of Starforce, the elite military team that Carol Danvers belongs to. Minn-Erva is a villain, a soldier who follows orders, and the part was small but it put Chan in a Marvel film, which is a significant step for any actor. In 2021 she returned to Marvel in a much larger role, playing Sersi in Eternals, directed by Chloé Zhao. Sersi is an Eternal, an immortal being who has lived on Earth for thousands of years, and who falls in love with a human, played by Kit Harington. The part required Chan to play a character who is ancient and yet young, who has seen civilisations rise and fall and who still believes in people, and the performance is built on a warmth and a stillness that are very different from Minn-Erva. Eternals was a large, ambitious film, and it divided critics, but Chan’s performance was praised, and the fact that Marvel trusted her with a leading role, after she had already played a villain, is a sign of how highly the studio rated her. She also voiced Namaari in Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021, a Disney animated film, playing the antagonist, a warrior princess who is both an enemy and a potential ally. The voice work showed a different side of her talent: she could carry a character with her voice alone, without her face, and the performance was one of the most memorable in the film.

The Creator, Don’t Worry Darling, and Producing Her Own Work

Chan has continued to take on a range of roles since Eternals, and the choices show an actress who is interested in variety rather than in repeating her successes. In 2022 she appeared in Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde, playing Shelley, a woman living in a strange, controlled community in the desert. In 2023 she starred in The Creator, directed by Gareth Edwards, a science-fiction film about a war between humans and artificial intelligence, playing Maya, a woman who is at the centre of the conflict. The film was visually spectacular, and Chan’s performance was praised for its emotional depth, even when the story itself was criticised. She also appeared in Extrapolations in 2023, an Apple TV+ series about the effects of climate change, playing a character in a story about the future of the planet. She has begun to move into producing, which is a significant step: producing means choosing the material, finding the director, and shaping the project from the beginning, rather than waiting for a script to arrive. She has spoken about wanting to tell stories about people who are rarely seen on screen, and about the importance of representation, not as a slogan but as a practical matter: if the people who make films do not look like the people who watch them, the films will not tell the truth about the world. She was named to the Time 100 Next list in 2019, a recognition of her influence, and she has used that influence to speak about the lack of roles for East Asian actors, a subject she knows from personal experience.

The Voice Work, the Short Films, and the Parts Between the Headlines

Between the large films there is a quieter list of credits that says a lot about how Chan actually works. She voiced Namaari in Raya and the Last Dragon, a performance that required her to convey a warrior’s pride and a young woman’s loneliness using only her voice, and the film’s success owed something to the strength of that vocal performance. She also did voice work in animation and in other projects, jobs that do not make headlines but that keep an actor sharp and that show a willingness to work in different forms. She appeared in Let Them All Talk in 2020, directed by Steven Soderbergh, a film about a writer on a cruise ship, playing a small part in an ensemble that included Meryl Streep and Dianne Wiest. The film was shot quickly, with largely improvised dialogue, and the experience of working with Soderbergh, one of the most respected directors in American cinema, was a sign of how far she had come from the law firm. She has also appeared in short films and in independent productions, work that does not pay well but that keeps an actor connected to the directors who make interesting films. These are the connective tissue of a working career: they keep relationships alive, they keep the craft sharp, and they show that the person is interested in the work itself rather than only in the size of the audience. Chan has kept a low profile on social media compared with many actors of her generation, and she has spoken about the pressure that online attention puts on performers, a choice that fits the same pattern as the rest of her career: she does the work, she talks about it when there is something to say, and she does not perform her life for an audience.

Representation, Patience, and What Comes Next

Chan has spoken about representation in Hollywood with a clarity that comes from personal experience. She has said that when she started acting, there were very few roles for East Asian actors, and that the roles that did exist were often stereotypes: the quiet student, the martial artist, the exotic girlfriend. She has said that she turned down roles that she felt were demeaning, and that she waited for better ones, a decision that cost her work in the short term and gave her a better career in the long term. Crazy Rich Asians was a turning point, not only for her but for the industry, because it proved that a film with an all-Asian cast could be a commercial success, and it opened doors for other actors. She has used her platform to advocate for more diverse casting, and she has done it in a practical way, by producing and by choosing projects that tell stories about people who are rarely seen on screen. She is in her early forties, she has played a Marvel lead, a synth, and a billionaire’s wife, and she has the freedom to choose what she does next. The most interesting question is whether she will direct, or whether she will focus on producing, or whether she will simply keep acting in the best films she can find. Whatever she does, the foundation is solid: a law degree from Oxford, a training at the Drama Centre, a decade of television and film, and a reputation for doing the work properly. The girl from Southwark who gave up the law to become an actress has become one of the most respected performers of her generation, and the decision she made in her early twenties looks, in retrospect, like the bravest and the wisest thing she has ever done.

Submarine, Jack Ryan, and Fantastic Beasts: the Film Roles Before Humans

Before Humans, Chan built a film career out of small, well-chosen parts, and the list of them is worth reading in full because it shows how patient she was. In 2010 she played Kim in Submarine, Richard Ayoade’s coming-of-age film about a teenager in Swansea, a small part in a film that became a cult favourite. In the same year she played Shin Shin in Shanghai, a period thriller starring John Cusack, set in the city in the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 2014 she played Amy Chang in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, the reboot of the Tom Clancy franchise, starring Chris Pine as the young analyst, a part that put her in a Hollywood action film and that showed she could work in a large, commercial production. In 2016 she played Madam Ya Zhou in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the Harry Potter spin-off directed by David Yates, a small part in a film that earned more than 800 million dollars worldwide. In 2017 she voiced Quintessa in Transformers: The Last Knight, the fifth film in the franchise, playing a robotic villain who is, in the story, the creator of the Transformers. In 2018 she played Bess of Hardwick in Mary Queen of Scots, directed by Josie Rourke, starring Saoirse Ronan as Mary and Margot Robbie as Elizabeth I, a part that put her in a prestigious period drama, playing a real historical figure who was one of the most powerful women in Tudor England.

None of these parts was large, and none of them made her famous, but they did something important: they proved to casting directors that she was reliable, professional, and capable of adjusting to very different kinds of material, from a small Welsh comedy to a Hollywood blockbuster to a period drama. They also gave her a filmography that, taken together, shows a range that is easy to overlook: she played a schoolgirl, a spy, a witch, a robot, and a Tudor noblewoman, all before she was thirty-five. The patience of those years is part of why Humans worked: she had already learned how to be on a set, how to listen to a director, and how to do the job without fuss, and when the large role came, she was ready for it. The film roles before Humans are the foundation of her career, and they are the reason the career that followed was built on solid ground rather than on a single lucky break.

Time’s Up, the Campaigns, and the Work Off Screen

Chan’s work off screen is part of her story, and it deserves a mention because it shows what she cares about when the cameras are not running. She was among the British actors who supported the Time’s Up UK campaign, which was launched in 2018 to address harassment and inequality in the entertainment industry, and she has spoken about the importance of the campaign in interviews. She has also used her platform to talk about representation, about the lack of roles for East Asian actors, and about the need for the industry to change, not as a slogan but as a practical matter: if the people who make films do not look like the people who watch them, the films will not tell the truth about the world. That restraint is part of why people listen to her when she does speak: she does not perform her opinions for an audience, she states them, and then she goes back to work.

Eternals was directed by Chloé Zhao, who had won the Academy Award for Best Director for Nomadland, and it was filmed in Britain and in the Canary Islands, with a cast that included Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, and Kit Harington. The film is about a group of immortal beings who have lived on Earth for thousands of years, and who must decide whether to save humanity from a threat that will destroy the planet. Chan played Sersi, the Eternal who loves humanity most, and who is the moral centre of the story. The cast was one of the most international in Marvel’s history, and the film was one of the most ambitious, with a story that spans seven thousand years. The film divided critics, but Chan’s performance was praised, and the fact that Marvel trusted her with a leading role, in a film directed by an Oscar winner, is a sign of how highly the studio rated her.

My Take:

The first thing I want to say about Gemma Chan is that giving up a law career at Oxford to become an actress is one of the bravest decisions I have come across in writing these life stories, and it is the decision that everything else in her career depends on. She had a training contract at Slaughter and May, one of the most competitive law firms in London, and a clear path to a comfortable, respectable life. She walked away from it, enrolled at the Drama Centre London, and started again at the bottom. Most people do not make that choice, and most people who do make it regret it. Chan did not regret it, and the reason is not luck but a particular kind of clarity: she had decided, as a teenager, that she wanted to act, and she had spent years putting the decision off because it seemed impractical. Oxford was the delay. The law firm was the delay. Drama school was the moment she stopped delaying, and the career that followed is the proof that the delay was worth it. I think that decision deserves more attention than it usually gets, because it tells you who she is: a person who would rather risk failure doing what she loves than succeed doing what she does not.

Humans is the performance I would point to if someone asked me what Chan is actually good at, and the answer is not glamour, it is stillness. Mia is a machine who learns to feel, and Chan plays that learning in increments so small that the audience almost does not notice them, until one day Mia is a person and the change has already happened. That is a very hard thing to do, because the actor has to show a transformation without ever making a show of it, and the temptation is to overplay, to signal the emotion so the audience does not miss it. Chan does the opposite: she underplays, she trusts the audience to notice, and the result is a performance that feels real rather than performed. The series ran for three seasons, and it was praised for its writing, but the writing would not have worked without Chan, because Mia is the moral centre of the story, and the audience has to believe in her. They did, and the reason is Chan’s performance.

Crazy Rich Asians is the film that made her famous, and the scene that people remember — Astrid buying the earrings after discovering her husband’s infidelity — is a masterclass in quiet acting. The scene is almost wordless, and it works because Chan’s face does the work: the audience sees a woman deciding, in real time, that she is worth more than the marriage that is failing her. That is a powerful moment, and it is powerful because it is restrained. A lesser actor would have cried, or shouted, or made a speech. Chan does none of those things. She looks at the earrings, she looks at herself in the mirror, and she decides. The film earned more than 200 million dollars, and it was the first Hollywood film with an all-Asian cast in twenty-five years, which means it mattered for reasons that had nothing to do with Chan’s performance. But her performance is the reason the film is remembered as a good film rather than only as an important one, and Astrid is the character that audiences quote when they talk about it.

The Marvel double — Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel and Sersi in Eternals — is unusual, and I think it says something about how Marvel sees her. Most actors play one character in the Marvel universe, and the studio is careful not to confuse the audience by casting the same face twice. Chan played two, and the second one was a leading role, which means Marvel trusted her enough to break its own rule. Sersi is a very different character from Minn-Erva: she is warm, she is ancient, she believes in people, and the performance is built on a stillness that is similar to the one in Humans. Eternals divided critics, and the film itself was not as successful as Marvel had hoped, but Chan’s performance was praised, and the fact that she carried a Marvel film is a significant achievement. I think the film’s problems were in the script, not in the acting, and Chan did what she could with the material she was given. That is true of most of her career: give her a good script and she will give you a great performance; give her a weak one and she will give you a professional one, but not a memorable one.

Her openness about representation is something I respect, and I want to be specific about why. She has said that when she started, there were very few roles for East Asian actors, and that the roles that existed were often stereotypes. She turned down roles she felt were demeaning, and she waited for better ones, a decision that cost her work in the short term. That is a brave thing to do when you are a young actress with no money and no fame, because the industry tells you to take whatever is offered and be grateful. Chan did not do that. She waited, and the wait paid off, first with Humans, then with Crazy Rich Asians, then with Marvel. I think that patience is the most important quality in her career, and it is the quality that connects her to the decision to leave the law: she is a person who is willing to wait for the right thing, rather than taking the wrong thing now. That is a rare quality, and it is the reason her career is as strong as it is.

If I have a criticism, it is that her film career has not yet given her a role as good as Mia in Humans, and that is a shame, because she is capable of more than the films have asked of her. The Creator was a good film, and Maya was a good part, but the film was not as strong as it could have been, and Don’t Worry Darling was a supporting role in a film that was more famous for its behind-the-scenes drama than for its story. I would like to see her in a leading role in a serious drama, something that lets her use the stillness and the intelligence that Humans showed she has. She is in her early forties, she is at the height of her powers, and she has the experience to carry a film. The industry should give her one, and if it does not, she may well produce one herself, which would be an even better outcome, because it would mean she is choosing the material rather than waiting for it.

Looking at the whole picture, I think Gemma Chan’s career is a story about patience and about refusing to accept the roles that other people think you should play. She gave up the law, she waited for good parts, she turned down stereotypes, she played a robot who learned to feel, a billionaire’s wife who learned her own worth, and a Marvel hero who had lived for thousands of years. The girl from Southwark who studied law at Oxford became an actress who is respected in three industries, and the decision she made in her early twenties — to walk away from safety and to start again — is the reason for all of it. That is a story worth telling, and it is a story that has nothing to do with luck. It has to do with knowing what you want and being willing to wait for it, and to work for it, until it arrives.

For anyone discovering her now, start with Humans, because it is the performance that shows what she can do, and then watch Crazy Rich Asians, because it is the film that shows what she can do when the whole world is watching. After that, watch Eternals, and notice how different Sersi is from Mia, even though the same actress plays both. Those three pieces of work, taken together, give you the full range, and they show you why a law graduate from Oxford became one of the most respected actresses of her generation.

The early film roles deserve one more word, because they are the foundation of everything that followed, and because they show how patient Chan was. Submarine is a small Welsh comedy about a teenager in Swansea, and Chan played Kim, a small part in a film that became a cult favourite. Shanghai is a period thriller starring John Cusack, and Chan played Shin Shin, a small part in a film set in the months before Pearl Harbor. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a Hollywood action film, and Chan played Amy Chang, a small part in a franchise reboot. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a Harry Potter spin-off that earned more than 800 million dollars, and Chan played Madam Ya Zhou, a small part in a film seen by millions. Mary Queen of Scots is a prestigious period drama, and Chan played Bess of Hardwick, a real historical figure who was one of the most powerful women in Tudor England. None of these parts was large, and none of them made her famous, but together they show a range that is easy to overlook: a schoolgirl, a spy, a witch, a robot, and a Tudor noblewoman, all before she was thirty-five. The patience of those years is part of why Humans worked, because she had already learned how to be on a set, and when the large role came, she was ready for it.

Bess of Hardwick is the part I would single out, because it is a historical figure, and because playing a real person requires a different kind of care from playing a fictional one. Bess was one of the most powerful women in Tudor England, a woman who married four times, who built Hardwick Hall, and who survived in a court where survival was never guaranteed. Chan played her in Mary Queen of Scots, a film starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie, and the part was small, but it put her in a prestigious production, and it showed that she could play a historical character with the seriousness the material demanded. That is a skill that not every actor has, and it is the reason directors trust her with period roles. The girl from Southwark who studied law at Oxford, and who gave it up to become an actress, has played a Tudor noblewoman, a Marvel hero, a robot who learned to feel, and a billionaire’s wife who learned her own worth, and the range of those roles is the reason her career is as strong as it is. She did not become famous by playing one kind of person. She became famous by playing many kinds, and by playing each one well.

The voice of Quintessa deserves a mention too, because it is easy to forget that Chan voiced a villain in Transformers: The Last Knight, and because voice work is a test that many actors fail. Quintessa is a robotic creator, a being who is, at once, ancient and mechanical, and Chan’s voice gave the character a cold, precise authority that the animation alone could not provide. Voice work requires the actor to convey everything through timing and tone, without the help of a face, and Chan did it, in a film that was seen by millions of people. The fact that she keeps doing voice work, between the films, shows that she is interested in the craft itself, not only in the size of the audience. An actress who will do a voice role in a children’s film, and a narration for a documentary, and a villain in a blockbuster, is an actress who loves the work, and that love is the reason her career is still growing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Gemma Chan really study law at Oxford before becoming an actress?

Yes, she studied law at Worcester College, Oxford, and then took a training contract at the London law firm Slaughter and May. She left the firm, enrolled at the Drama Centre London, and trained as an actress, starting a second career from scratch in her early twenties.

Who did Gemma Chan play in Humans?

She played Mia, also known as Anita, a synth who becomes conscious and learns to feel, in the Channel 4 and AMC series Humans, which ran for three seasons from 2015 to 2018. Mia is the moral centre of the series, and Chan’s performance was central to its success.

What is the famous earrings scene in Crazy Rich Asians?

Chan played Astrid Leong, a wealthy woman whose marriage is falling apart. After discovering her husband’s infidelity, Astrid goes to a jeweller and buys a pair of earrings, and the quiet scene, in which she decides she is worth more than the marriage, is one of the most talked-about moments in the film.

Did Gemma Chan play two different characters in Marvel films?

Yes, she played Minn-Erva, a Kree sniper, in Captain Marvel in 2019, and Sersi, an Eternal who has lived on Earth for thousands of years, in Eternals in 2021. Marvel rarely casts the same actor twice, which shows how highly the studio rated her.

What did Gemma Chan say about roles for East Asian actors?

She has said that when she started acting, there were very few roles for East Asian actors, and that the roles that existed were often stereotypes. She turned down parts she felt were demeaning and waited for better ones, a decision that cost her work in the short term and gave her a better career in the long term.

Was Gemma Chan named to the Time 100 Next list?

Yes, she was named to the Time 100 Next list in 2019, a recognition of her influence. She has used that platform to speak about representation and about the need for more diverse casting in Hollywood.