Hong Chau (born June 25, 1979) is an American actress. She has received several award nominations for her film roles as Ngoc Lan Tran in Downsizing (2017) and as Liz, a nurse, in The Whale (2022), including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the latter. Chau was born to Vietnamese parents who lived in a refugee camp in Thailand after fleeing Vietnam in the late 1970s. A Vietnamese Catholic church in New Orleans sponsored Chau and her family to move to the United ...