The whale

Up for best supporting actress for “The Whale,” she never dreamed of being a performer. But she has turned into “a force of nature,” says Brendan Fraser.

I thought I wanted to be either a writer or an editor, something that was a little bit more solitary, and it’s just odd that I find myself in front of the camera. She was like, “Your character reminded me of a maid.” I was like, “I’m sorry, what are you talking about?” My goal is not to be president of the Asian American student body — I just want to do good work and just leave it at that. Even with Elsa in “The Menu,” I thought she was a very dominating character, but during an interview, somebody was asking a question about Asian stereotypes, and she was also Asian. Why just supporting?” But I love supporting characters and I love doing that work to make them feel really full — it’s a little bit of a puzzle where you have to look for clues in the text. But that was all just for me, and it felt luxurious, like, “Oh, this only happens on a Darren Aronofsky movie.” No other production would allow me to spend the time or the money on these tattoos. By the second or third day, I kind of tuned him out a little bit and was able to just focus on Brendan and trying to find those different moments with him. I think it was a useful bit of information in terms of picturing what it was like for her growing up in Idaho in this very conservative, religious family. And he was the one who also really pushed me to throw my hat in the ring and said that he would be there to support me. And she can say more in between lines of dialogue, in the pauses and the silences, than I can with dialogue.” Chau will next be seen in a raft of auteur-driven films that include [Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up,”](https://a24films.com/films/showing-up) Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” and “And” from Yorgos Lanthimos, but in the meantime, audiences are still discovering her work in “The Whale,” in which her character, Liz, tends to Fraser’s 600-pound recluse with a whole lot of tough love. In 2017, after a breakout role in Alexander Payne’s “ [Downsizing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCrBICYM0yM),” she’d been hotly tipped for a nomination that never came, the sort of anticlimax that can make you want to detach from the hubbub of awards season altogether.