The Slow-Burn Star

With Homecoming and Driveways, Hong Chau is landing roles that match her talent. But the road along the way has been bumpy.

- By E. Alex Jung

You’re not really supposed to notice Hong Chau in the first season of Homecoming until it’s too late. She plays Audrey Temple, a secretary at the unscrupulous Geist Group’s offices and assistant to professional dick-swinger Colin Belfast (played by expert bloviator Bobby Cannavale). Female secretaries often have a thankless role in both life and onscreen—an office drone who adds a touch of femininity to the surroundings, like a potted plant. Audrey first appears in the fourth episode to interface with the beginning of a crisis that eventually takes down Colin. In fact, she’s the one to orchestrate the takedown, and, in the finale, the person Colin took for granted is suddenly the one asking for his resignation. In the second season, she becomes the protagonist scaling the corporate ladder—the anti-hero of her own story.

Casting Chau was always a longer play for the show. Initially, the creators Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg didn’t know what her role would look like in the second season—just that she would rise to a position of power. “We were lucky about the moment in her career that we got her because, for practical reasons, it was important that that character not be some megastar,” says Horowitz. “She’s supposed to be overlooked, not just by the characters but by the viewer. Two years ago, she was still someone who, if you paid attention, you were keeping your eye on, but she was also able to disappear into a role. Her arc over the two seasons of Homecoming has paralleled her rise as a performer.”