How Constance Got Her Groove Back

For actress Constance Lau, snagging a role in Crazy Rich Asians was validation that her years of hard work and gumption had finally hit pay dirt. Soon you’ll be seeing this “overnight success” as a lead in a local TV series. Not so crazy after all.

- Clara How

CONSTANCE LAU IS UNEXPECTEDLY AN AUNTIE

It’s 3pm on a Sunday, and we’re at her brother’s restaurant (he owns beef bowl chain Waa Cow!). Constance is looking perfectly poised with impeccable makeup, a fitted white top and green trousers, and not a hair out of place. She looks exactly like the petite, doe-eyed ingenue we’ve seen in photos.

So it’s a bit of a surprise when we end up talking about the best type of fruit to aid bowel movements (for the record, it’s yellow dragon fruit). And how she’s obsessed with this certain type of tissue paper – so obsessed that she hauled 12 boxes back from Bangkok (“it’s soooo soft, it’s great for my sinus problem”). And how she’s all about online shopping, but prefers nabbing the cheapest deals by finding dupes. It’s delightfully incongruous.

Even more so because we’ve seen her bedecked and bedazzled in Crazy Rich Asians, where she played a small but crucial role as Celine, aka Radio One Asia, who was instrumental in revealing protagonist Rachel Chu’s (Constance Wu) identity as prime bachelor Nick Young’s paramour. It was a role that called for a lot of side eye glances and being part of the crazy rich posse. The character may be the instigator of gossip in reel life, but in reality, Constance says she avoids drama and is “always the last to know what’s going on”.

She may have the same name as CRA’s lead actress, but this Constance never let it faze her. “On set, I just joked with the crew to call me Ah Lau, since in school, Lau Lau was my nickname,” she laughs. But also, director Jon Chu took care to make sure everyone felt included. “Constance Wu and I are very different people, so it never occurred to me to be seen as ‘the other Constance’.”