The Lady Is A Boss

With a law degree from Oxford, a license to kill in Captain Marvel, and a fashion sense that won’t quit, Gemma Chan has the world by the tail. She talks to Jessica Chia about how she plans to leverage her success, fight bigotry, and maybe play a real-life superhero.

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Gemma Chan is perched on a chair in her dimly lit hotel room, barefoot, hair pulled back into a bun that didn’t quite catch the front pieces. She is telling me that all she wants, after the biggest year yet in her career, is to get a dog. A rescue, probably. For the first time all night, she is just Gemma.

Moments earlier, she was holding court in a voluminous, rose-colored couture gown. It was like a scene in a movie: two seamstresses flitting about her, making sure that her crinoline petticoat is fluffed just so, that the train grazes the floor perfectly, and that the ruffle on the gown’s bodice flounces at just the right height, all done under the direction of designer Jason Wu. With newfound fame comes newfound scrutiny. The grosgrain ribbon she deftly lobbied to be sewn on at the waist would be noted in the press a week later.

And yet even after the fitting, in a comfy gray sweater and cropped jeans, she still exudes an otherworldly quality. That’s partly due to her measured, soft, and properly British way of speaking and partly due to her looks. Her face is symmetrical to a degree that seems statistically improbable, complete with high cheekbones, bright eyes, and full lips, which may explain why she’s often cast in extraordinary roles: the self-sacrificing android Mia in the British TV series Humans, Nick Young’s flawless but troubled cousin Astrid in Crazy Rich Asians, and most recently, the sharp-shooting space sniper Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel. “I’m not allowed to talk about it very much,” Chan says, “but she’s part of an elite special-forces team that Brie Larson’s character is part of, and Jude Law is our commander. She’s a sniper, and she’s very, very good at her job.”