Background and career
Hong Chau (born June 25, 1979) is an American actress. She is most known for her performance in the 2022 film The Whale, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and other supporting actress awards. Her breakthrough role was in the 2017 film Downsizing, for which she was nominated for several supporting-actress awards. Variety wrote in 2022 that Chau had "been prolific in recent years" and that she had "an acclaimed turn" in the TV series Watchmen (2019) and Homecoming (2018–2020).
She appeared in the TV series Treme (2010–2013) and the film Inherent Vice (2014). In 2018, she had guest-star roles in several TV series. In 2019, she played a supporting role in the limited series Watchmen, and had leading roles in the films American Woman and Driveways. She moved from a supporting role in the first season of Homecoming to a starring role in 2020. In 2022, she had supporting roles in the films Showing Up, The Menu, and The Whale. In 2023, she had a main role in the TV series The Night Agent.
Chau was born to Vietnamese parents who lived in a refugee camp in Thailand after fleeing Vietnam in the late 1970s. A Vietnamese Catholic church in New Orleans, Louisiana, sponsored Chau and her family to move to the United States. She grew up in New Orleans and majored in film studies at Boston University's College of Communication.
