Hong Chau

“I love public transportation! Who wants to sit in a car and be angry at other drivers for eight hours? I'd rather sit on a bus or train and read a book.”

“I don't want anyone to think I took this role in 'Downsizing' because it was the only role available to me. I'm not a passive participant in it.”

“I like to be very simple in my lifestyle. My only extravagance is... I buy lots of toys and meats for my dog.”

“The first time I went to Chicago was on a family road trip. We had our dog with us, and when we hit Chicago, I couldn't believe how many people kept coming up to us, telling us how handsome our dog was! He's a Rottweiler-Australian Shepherd mix, and he is a good-looking dog, but obviously Chicago is very dog-friendly.”

“On 'Downsizing,' I had a trailer, and I got to bring my dog to work, and I thought, 'I've made it: I'm bringing my dog to work.'”

“I love films that aren't just speaking to certain moments in the culture but are something that people can revisit.”

“I don't like being watched, and I don't like being told what to do, so acting is a very poor professional choice.”

“It's nice to have a quiet movie to give you time to meditate on an idea. A lot of movies don't give you the space to feel anything.”

“I don't want to put on any gimmicky layers just to give the character more definition. I just want to play good characters. It doesn't matter to me if it's 'open ethnicity' or 'specifically Asian.'”

“For a good part of my childhood, we were super poor and lived in government housing. I don't characterize the American dream as being successful and having a lot of material wealth to show for it. I did fine without it for a really long time.”

“I'm really into ghost towns. I've driven cross-country the past few summers, and I would stop at some ghost towns along the way. They're like a microcosm of America as a whole.”

“I don't have any special skills or any hidden talents. I don't.”

“People who I've encountered who have had more given to them, they tend to be more disappointed and unable to carry on when something doesn't go their way, and that's not my parents.”

“Public libraries were a huge source of comfort and joy for me when I was growing up. I still spend time there.”

“Part of me, even when I was trying to get acting jobs, I was still kind of thinking, 'Oh I should do something else with my life.'”

“I did a regional car commercial and an internet potato chip commercial. I was seriously thinking I needed to quit and get a serious job where I can feed myself and it doesn't kill my soul.”

“I think that a lot of actors of color have said that it's a wonderful thing to play a role that doesn't have a race and that is kind of open to any sort of interpretation. I completely understand that, but at the same time, I just want Asian characters that are well-written.”

“With 'Downsizing,' a lot of the discussion hasn't been about the film itself, but about cultural and political conversations happening outside of it. It's being digested in the context of the time.”

“Growing up the way I did, being an actor in Hollywood was definitely never a plausible career choice at all.”

“I fell into acting because I was really shy, and so at night after work, I took public speaking and improv classes, and I started going to auditions sort of as a dare. That was my version of 'Fear Factor.'”