The Venom franchise has had plenty of fun surprises since the hugely successful first film in 2018. One of the most delightful of those surprises is the character of Mrs. Chen, played by Peggy Lu. A convenience store owner in San Francisco and unexpected ally of Tom Hardy’s Venom, Mrs. Chen quickly became a fan favorite with her unimpressed and no-nonsense attitude. She’s become so popular that she has appeared in each of the first two Venom films, is set to appear again in Venom: The Last Dance, and also enjoyed a cameo in the animated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
Mrs. Chen is given life by Peggy Lu, a Chinese American actress who has appeared in a variety of productions, including Always Be My Maybe, Superstore, The Sex Lives of College Girls, NCIS: Los Angeles, Rizzoli & Isles, and Animal Kingdom. But Lu isn’t just a veteran of Hollywood; she also has a Ph.D. in pharmacy and still currently works as a pharmacist while acting.
I had the chance to speak with Lu in advance of the release of the third and potentially final Venom film. Lu returns as Mrs. Chen, and based on the trailers, has a hilariously fun moment in Las Vegas ballroom dancing with everyone’s favorite symbiote anti-hero.
What was apparent early in our conversation is that much of Lu’s personality is a part of Mrs. Chen as a character. She has a level of irreverence and rebelliousness and doesn’t hesitate to let some choice four-letter words fly.
“I have very limited vocabulary okay?” Lu said jokingly. “I think also maybe because I’m trying to get away from the Asian stereotype. I guess on a subconscious level, I’m trying to let people know I’m not uptight, like my parents. I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. I’m thinking maybe I’m trying to be a rebel.”
Lu first began acting in college in New York and has been working Hollywood for nearly 30 years. Unsurprisingly, she has faced her share of stereotypical situations throughout her career. I asked Lu about some instances where she had to push back against those stereotypes in her auditions and how she managed those situations.
“I know I have an accent, and then they will just say, ‘Can you do it with an accent?’ and then sometimes it depends, like if I’m in a shitty mood, and I’ll be going well ‘What kind of accent? I’m from the South so I could also do a Southern accent!’ So then I go, ‘Okay Peggy, you got to calm down you’re gonna come across as a bitch.’ And then plus, Asian women are known to be very blunt, in your face, and I don’t want them to look at my people. Because it’s so easy to be, you know, if I’m being a bitch, they’re gonna think, ‘Oh all the Chinese women are bitches,'” Lu said. “And so I feel like I have to be also very careful, because I feel like sometimes we make the wrong move or if we’re in a shitty mood and you’re being yourself, and then they’re gonna typecast the entire race. And I do feel it happens like that and so I have to be very conscious, so I think maybe that’s why I go out of my way to really just curse up a storm. Because I know that they won’t be able to typecast the rest of my race of women like that.”
Of course, no one person should be held responsible for an entire race of people, but it’s a common burden that actors from marginalized backgrounds face. Lu is clearly acutely aware of that burden and approaches it with humor.
I have thoroughly enjoyed Lu’s performances as Mrs. Chen, a character that could have easily fallen into stereotypical tropes and presented an Asian store owner with no personality or humanity. Thankfully, the Venom creators and Lu came together to ensure that wasn’t the case, infusing Mrs. Chen with a very welcome attitude, confidence and personality. Lu shared how they managed to avoid that potential pitfall.
“Well first of all, they did not put any parameters on the character. When I auditioned initially, they didn’t say, ‘Oh we want you to do an accent,’ which I thought was really cool. And then I thought, ‘Okay, well I really have an accent, so that doesn’t matter.’ Because they were different, you know? The only thing that’s a very typical Asian thing is [that Mrs. Chen is] an Asian convenience store owner okay? But they didn’t tell me to do a heavier accent and they just let me do whatever I wanted and that was it. And in the first Venom, where we improvise in Chinese, that was Tom’s idea. Tom goes, ‘Hey man, let’s go do some improv in Chinese!’ and I go ‘Yeah man let’s do it!’ and then like a dumbass I said, ‘Do you speak Chinese?’ and of course he doesn’t. But that was his clever idea,” Lu said.
For the latest film, Lu gets to do a little more than stand behind the counter of the store, hitting the road to Las Vegas and doing a little dancing. That expansion of Mrs. Chen’s role required Lu to do some dance training.
“I did go through training and the choreographer is Jennifer White from Barbie. She’s working now on Fantastic Four. She saved me. She was so patient. From cheerleading [in high school], I broke my left knee. My ACL had to be replaced. My meniscus is torn. So going in, I already had a lot of injuries; there’s a lot of things I cannot do, like the turns and stuff, because my left knee has a tendency to go sideways. Your knee is only supposed to go forward and straight, but my knee likes to go sideways,” Lu said. “So originally when I saw the steps that they wanted me to do, and I said, ‘Are you sure? I don’t know if I could do that.’ So then she would modify the steps so I could do it and she is just such a thoughtful person…and then because I was feeling very insecure, she did something that was amazing. She said we’ll just have minimal people on set so I won’t feel so self-conscious.”
Finally, given the highly introduction of a major new character was revealed in the last trailer, many fans have been wondering what that means for the future of the Sony Marvel franchise. Lu teased that the character hints at an ending that will shock fans.
Introducing that character now, I feel like they have expanded the the universe. Because I think a lot of people were thinking about Spider-Man and now they’re throwing Knull, and it just expanded this Venom-verse even more. And I think it was so smart because I felt like, what an interesting concept,” Lu said. “And it just throws the whole fan base off, because it’s just such a surprising move. And Venom: The Last Dance is so different and you will be very surprised with the ending. I was surprised just reading it and I had to change glasses to make sure! Seriously! And I thought, “Ah this can’t be! This is bullshit! What?! What?!”
Venom: The Last Dance premieres October 24, 2024.
Ron is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of POC Culture. He is a big believer in the power and impact of pop culture and the importance of representation in media.
