Gemma Chan's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) Secret Diary of a Call Girl (UK) Charlotte Humans (UK) Anita/Mia H… Dates (UK) Erica

Main Movie Roles

BIOGRAPHY:

Gemma Chan (born November 29, 1982) is an English film, television and theatre actress and former fashion model. She portrays Charlotte in season four of the Showtime and ITV2 series Secret Diary of a Call Girl; Ruth in Channel 4's award-winning series Fresh Meat; Mia Bennett in the BBC's Doctor Who "The Waters of Mars" and Soo Lin in Sherlock, She also appeared in the BAFTA-nominated film Exam and Paramount Pictures' action-thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. She co-stars in Humans, an AMC/Channel 4 eight part sci-fi drama, which premiered in June 2015.

Born at Guy's Hospital in London, England. Her father grew up in Hong Kong and was an engineer. Her mainland Chinese mother, a pharmacist at Guy's Hospital, emigrated from pre-Cultural Revolution Communist China via Hong Kong with her parents (Chan's maternal grandparents) and younger sister, growing up in Greenock, Scotland. Chan was raised near Sevenoaks, a town in west Kent, in South East England and attended Newstead Wood School for Girls in Orpington, in the London Borough of Bromley. She later went on to read law at Worcester College, Oxford.

Following graduation, she successfully gained a training contract offer as a graduate at leading law firm Slaughter and May; but, realising that her heart was not in the law and that her passion lay in drama and performance, she decided to pursue an acting career and gained admission and studied at the prestigious and notoriously tough Drama Centre London. Spotted at her showcase by British film producer Damian Jones, she then signed.

In 2006, Chan was one of the models in season one of Project Catwalk, the UK version of Project Runway. She was one of the top three models who made it to the final, although her designer did not win the final challenge. She has also been photographed by Rankin for a campaign for Nivea Visage, having previously worked as a model in order to fund her studies and drama school training, appearing in campaigns for Nokia and Selfridges and numerous magazines including Elle, Cosmopolitan and The Sunday Times Style.

Chan lives and works in England. She is classically trained on the violin and piano. As of 2013, she and comedian/actor Jack Whitehall had been dating for two years and lived together in Notting Hill.

She is a lifelong supporter of Arsenal F.C..

In September 2013, she appeared at the Old Bailey in Central London as a witness to a fatal stabbing outside Putney Bridge underground station.


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