Gemma Chan takes the lead in Eternals, the eagerly anticipated new Marvel superhero movie from Oscar-winning Nomadland director Chloé Zhao. Ahead of its release November 5, let’s take a minute to learn more about this talented actress, who’s racked up roles in everything from AMC sci-fi series Humans to smash-hit rom-com Crazy Rich Asians. Here are 10 things you might not know about her.
1. She grew up in southeast London, the daughter of a Chinese father and Scottish Chinese mother, and describes her upbringing as "a real mix" of British and Asian culture.
"I mean, I definitely feel… very English, very British," Chan told Allure.  "But also, there were elements of my upbringing that were very, very Chinese as well. You know, my mom and dad, they spoke both Cantonese and English to me at home until I was three years old, and then they decided to only speak English to me. So my Cantonese is developed — well, basically stunted its development at the age of a three-year-old."
2. She is an accomplished violinist who learned the instrument up to Grade 8.
You can watch rather grainy footage of Chan playing with a string quartet on YouTube.
3. She completed a degree in Jurisprudence – i.e. Law – at Oxford University.
After graduating, Chan was offered a job at one of London's top law firms, Slaughter and May, but turned it down to pursue an acting career. 
4. Turning her back on the Law was "really, really painful" for her.
"I knew how important education was because of my parents," Chan told The Guardian in 2019. "It's what got my dad out of poverty, enabled his siblings to, and it meant he could come to the UK."
Recalling that her parents were initially wary of her acting career, Chan added: "I feel bad for talking about it now because they're so proud and supportive. But I totally understand where they were coming from. It was a pure fear of not knowing whether I was going to be all right. Both my parents are immigrants. They came from nothing, had to work so hard, and so the idea for them, I suppose, of taking a risk, that wasn't a luxury they had. I always knew that was the luxury and privilege that I had, that they had given me."
5. After her degree, she studied acting at the Drama Centre London.
Fellow alumni include Michael Fassbender, Colin Firth, Gwendoline Christie, Regé-Jean Page, Emilia Clarke, and Tom Hardy, so Chan is definitely in good company.
6. She also appeared as a runway model on Project Catwalk, the U.K.'s version of Project Runway, which was hosted by Elizabeth Hurley.
You can check out Chan's runway strut in the clip below.
7. She appreciates why her early role in Sherlock attracted some criticism.
Chan appeared in the 2010 episode "The Blind Banker" as Soo Lin Yao, a character that some viewers felt perpetuated stereotypes about supposedly "docile" Asian women. "Would I necessarily make the same choices now, if given the choice? Maybe not. I think I would speak up more if I felt that a role was leaning into an orientalist trope of some sort," Chan told British Vogue. "I'm much more aware. And I think I’m in more of a position where I could say something."
8. She's not necessarily as confident as you might think.
"People don’t believe it, but I'm naturally quite shy," Chan told The Guardian. "I've had to work really hard to mask that, not appear anxious or nervous." After saying that she always worries about falling over on the red carpet, Chan added: "And I've nearly fainted before, because you don’t realize you’re not breathing and all of the flashes start going off in your face..."
9. At the height of the pandemic, she and boyfriend Dominic Cooper volunteered for Cook-19, an organization that distributed meals to frontline health workers.
"We were just the guys who turned up with the flapjacks and the food," Chan told British Vogue. "The porters would recognize us, but just in terms of, 'Oh, it's you guys – the food couriers who sometimes had stolen a sausage roll or two.'"
10. She is also a Unicef UK ambassador who has traveled to Jamaica to raise awareness of issues related to domestic violence.
On International Women's Day this year, Chan wrote an important article for Harper’s Bazaar about the way the pandemic has impacted women and children's safety all over the world. "Every woman deserves to live a life free of violence, wherever they are," she concluded. "Let's do all we can to make sure that happens."
Have we forgotten something interesting about Gemma Chan?