Biography
A veteran actress in her native China for nearly a half-century, Zhao Shuzhen earned critical and audience praise for her American feature debut in Lulu Wang's "The Farewell" (2019), a bittersweet drama about a young Chinese-American (played by Awkwafina) who returned to China to be with her beloved grandmother (Shuzhen), who was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Born in Harbin, the second largest city in Northeast China, Shuzhen was introduced to acting by accident: at 16, she accompanied a friend to the Harbin Grand Theater and was convinced to audition for its drama school. She would remain a staple of the theater's repertory company for the next four decades, appearing in both classical drama and modern pieces, including a staged production of "Casablanca" (1942) for which she played the Ingrid Bergman role. Theater would remain her primary showcase until the mid-1970s, when Beijing Television (later China Central Television) expanded its slate of programming from evenings-only broadcasts to full day schedules. Shuzhen soon became a regular guest performer on the network's slate of dramas and other series, and eventually gained a measure of national popularity in the early '90s playing a mother on a well-liked series set during China's Cultural Revolution. That role also made her writer-director Lulu Wang's first choice to play "Nai Nai," the terminally ill matriarch of a Chinese family determined to make her final days comfortable, in her indie film "The Farewell." Shuzhen initially declined the film, citing her own busy television schedule, but was convinced to appear in the film after Wang told her about how her own grandmother's illness prompted her own family to carry out an elaborate ruse - staging a fake wedding, as seen in the film - in order to spend time with her. Shuzhen's performance - her first in a Western film - was widely praised by critics, and earned numerous award nominations from critical organizations, including the Independent Spirit Awards, as well as a win for Best Supporting Actress from the San Diego Film Critics Society in 2019.
