Ngoc Lan Tran is a fictional character that appears in the 2017 American film Downsizing and is played by actress Hong Chau. In the satire film, Tran is a supporting character and a Vietnamese political dissident who is jailed and "downsized" (shrunken to five inches, or 12.7 cm, tall) by her country. In the process of escaping her country, she loses her left leg below the knee. The film was directed by Alexander Payne, who wrote the screenplay with Jim Taylor. Chau's performance was widely recognized as a standout. Some critics complained that the role was an Asian caricature with the performance involving a heavy Vietnamese accent and broken English. Chau defended the portrayal and considered her character to be more layered. For her performance, she was nominated for several awards for Best Supporting Actress.
Fictional appearance
In the film Downsizing that follows protagonist Paul Safranek's journey, Ngoc Lan Tran is a supporting character and a Vietnamese political activist who was jailed and downsized against her will. After a harrowing escape and journey to the United States, she ends up in Leisureland with a prosthetic leg. Paul, a recently downsized man, meets Ngoc Lan while she is working as a house cleaner and decides to help her with her prosthetic leg. However, he accidentally breaks it and agrees to work for her cleaning service and help distribute food in the slums.
When Paul's friend Dusan tries to release him from his obligation to Ngoc Lan by taking him on a trip, Ngoc Lan joins them. On the journey, they meet Dr. Asbjørnsen, the scientist who developed downsizing. He informs them about the impending human extinction due to Arctic methane emissions. Paul wants to join Dr. Asbjørnsen's plan of entering an underground vault to ensure the future of mankind but Ngoc Lan refuses, stating that the people above ground need help. Ultimately, Paul decides to stay with Ngoc Lan, and they continue working together to serve the people of the Leisureland slums.
Casting and preparation
Hong Chau read that director Alexander Payne was developing a sci-fi satire, and since she had seen all of the director's films, she asked her manager for a copy of the script before knowing there was an Asian female role in the film. Chau submitted an audition tape, which the director received. They both met to discuss the role, and while the filmmakers conducted an international casting search, they ultimately cast Chau. Chau, who is of Vietnamese descent but grew up in the United States, worked on her character's accent by drawing from her personal experience with family members having been first-generation immigrants in the country. Chau said there was a dearth of Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American roles, particularly one with her character's refugee background that reflected her family's. She described the role, "Here's this character we normally see in the background and they're not given very much attention in both movies and in life."
Chau described her character as "part dictator, part Mother Teresa and part Charlie Chaplin". She modeled her character after the writer Flannery O'Connor and the Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres. She also drew inspiration from Akira Kurosawa's 1965 film Red Beard, which features a town doctor and his intern. Chau also sought to portray the amputee character authentically by working with an amputee consultant based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The consultant, who was an amputee like the written character, showed her around a rehabilitation center where she and other amputees had gone through rehab. She also practiced how to walk as if she had a prosthetic leg, and later a pegleg. Chau said, "I hope that, in addition to people seeing this role and being inspired that she's an Asian woman, they're also inspired that she's a person with a disability, and I hope that inspires them to write more stories."
The actress said the director offered to let Chau change the character's name, but she declined, finding that past Asian characters had names easy for Americans to pronounce.