Gemma Chan: We should 'be less judgmental with others and with ourselves'
6th August 2019
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It’s been a busy couple of years for Gemma Chan.
After roles in blockbusters Crazy Rich Asians and Captain Marvel, the 36-year-old British actor was “craving doing something on a much smaller, much more intimate scale.” In her latest project, she takes the lead in I Am Hannah, one of a trio of TV movies directed by Dominic Savage, coming to Channel 4 this summer. Chan worked closely on the story with Savage, as did the other leading actors in the rest of the trilogy.

Gemma Chan stars in I Am Hannah / Image Credit: Channel 4
“I’d not collaborated in this way where I’d been so involved in developing the story before,” Chan says when we talk to her at Channel 4 HQ. “As an actor, I’m very used to serving someone else’s vision… It feels particularly satisfying to work in this way.” The film follows Hannah, a woman in her thirties living in London and navigating being single, internet dating, and the pressure to settle down and start a family. “We knew we wanted to do something in the area of becoming a mother, societal ideas about motherhood, fertility,” Chan says, regarding her and Dominic’s ideas behind the plot. “I felt that I’d had a lot of discussions around this area… and it just felt like I hadn’t seen anything that had approached it in this way, having these open discussions.”
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