Around two decades ago, on a seemingly ordinary day in Central, Hong Kong, a young actress stood at the edge of a busy street, preparing for her first on-camera scene. The task was deceptively simple: cross the street and faint. No lines, no dialogue, just pure physical performance. Yet in that moment, young Fala Chen discovered something extraordinary.
She thought to herself:
If I get to do this for a living for the rest of my life, it would just be a dream come true.
And there it was. She knew that she had realised her calling.
From growing her career with TVB and making her silver screen debut in Hong Kong to making the bold decision to pursue a master’s degree at Juilliard in 2014—where she went on to become the first Chinese American to earn an MFA from the school’s drama division—Fala Chen’s path has been anything but conventional.
“I am quite an adventurous person. I’m actually more comfortable when I’m on the move, where I know this is not my permanent space,” she reveals. “My family—my parents, grandparents, my aunts—spent their entire lives in music, dance, and art, but they actually tried to pull me away from it. They tried to send me to business school and wanted me to have ‘a normal life’. But the more they tried to keep me away from the arts, the more I rebelled,” she laughs. “It’s just in my bones. In my blood. I love it so much that I eventually found my own way back to it at a later age.”
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Now, she takes on her latest role in the Ballad of a Small Player, a British psychological thriller directed by Edward Berger and written by Rowan Joffé. Premiered at the 52nd Telluride Film Festival in August 2025, the film is an adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s 2014 novel, The Ballad of a Small Player, which follows the encounters of a high-stakes gambler, Lord Doyle, as he lies low in Macau. Chen breathes life into the complex and enigmatic Dao Ming, who lends Doyle a lifeline as he drowns in his debts.
“[Dao Ming] grew up in China, and when we meet her, she was working as a low-level broker, or you could call her a loan shark, mingling on the casino floors in Macau and looking for her next prey, who are people who desperately need to borrow money at a very high interest rate,” Chen explains. Originally, in Osborne’s novel, Dao Ming was a sex worker navigating the streets of Macau, entangled in transactional relationships that defined her survival. For the film, however, the production team reimagined her as a broker, someone tied more directly to the film’s themes of money and greed.
But the transformation of Dao Ming runs deeper than just her profession. “It also changed the relationship between Dao Ming and Doyle. It’s no longer a sexual transaction. It’s actually very platonic. The connection is deeper, ” she states. For Chen, this shift holds a much greater significance, one that resonates with her personally. It allows her to portray an Asian woman whose story is rarely seen on screen—one shaped by survival and resilience, rather than stereotypes. To prepare for the role, Chen immersed herself in research, seeking to understand the experiences of women like Dao Ming to build her backstory, one rooted in cultural and historical significance. “I watched a lot of YouTube interviews and videos about a lot of Chinese women born in the countryside in the ‘90s. There was this whole migration at the time—especially women leaving their villages to go to big cities or places like Macau and Hong Kong to find work.”
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“[Dao Ming] is someone who’s struggled a lot with her life in the past, and we met her at a very difficult time in her life that she really didn’t know how to get out of—the life and the situation and the city of Macau, of the world that she kind of got entrapped in. It’s a very mysterious, sad, but kind and loving person.” This delicate balance of strength and vulnerability is something Chen worked to bring to the surface, ensuring that Dao Ming’s humanity shines through her difficult circumstances.
“I think it’s so important that we get to see, especially female characters, who are not just sexualised, especially Asian female characters,” she emphasises. “It’s a story of our shared struggles and triumphs as human beings across different cultures.”
She recalls the words of French philosopher Denis Diderot that have stayed with her throughout her acting journey: “he always says, a great art piece has to show the great parts of the human experience. The human life has to be reflected in the art in a positive way. What makes us special, what makes human beings special.” And that, to Chen, is what distinguishes a great actor from a good one. “It feels a little egocentric as human beings, but there is a distinction between us and animals. The human spirit and humanity are so important to be shown in a story or character. A great actor can elevate that because not every character that’s written has layers or depth in it.”
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When asked about the greatest advice she’s ever received, her response takes an unexpected turn, offering a glimpse into her down-to-earth personality. “You don’t need to wash your hair every day,” she says with genuine amusement. “I was like: Oh, wait—really? And, now I don’t,” she chuckles.
Her expression softens as she shares the wisdom of her Juilliard teacher, Richard Feldman: “How you talk about your work is how your work is going to be.”
She reflects on its broader meaning: “And I think that applies to everything in life, in the way that I parent my children, and the way that I talk to you about my work. It is also putting positive energy and putting a way of thinking about and describing about how you work and how you carry yourself in your life. I think it does something. I think how we express ourselves, how we talk to other people, how we talk about our work, is how consciously we’re going to end up doing it.”
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Years have passed since that young actress stood on a Central Hong Kong street, preparing to faint in her first scene on TV. That small but pivotal moment was the first spark of a lifelong passion, and it set her on a path that continues to evolve. Today, Chen is focused on filling the gaps she sees in storytelling, crafting narratives she has “never seen on screen, stories that I have never heard of.” She continues her journey with a simple yet profound philosophy, one that keeps her grounded and allows her to keep moving forward:
“One job at a time, one line at a time.”
Photographer: Olivia Tsang
Stylist: Cherry Mui
Makeup Artist: Mon Cheng
Hair Stylist: Alex So
Photography Assistants: Sing Chu and Michael Tang
Fashion Assistant: Mama Yiu
Location: Jean-Pierre Hong Kong
Cover Wardrobe: CHANEL
Editor
Kaitlyn Lai
