Terry Chen on Becoming 'Chen Fong-Torres'
By Ben Fong-Torres

Chen and Ben. Which is which?

AsianConnections is proud to present the adventures of Ben Fong-Torres, our Renaissance man, author, broadcaster, and longtime writer and senior editor at legendary Rolling Stone Magazine. This guy's our hero!

Ben's a featured character in "Almost Famous," written and directed by Cameron Crowe. (A true story written and directed by Crowe - his first since writing and directing Tom Cruise in "Jerry Maguire.")                                                        -  AC Team

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     In his short, two-year career as an actor, Terry Chen has already managed to play a  tremendous range of characters. In "Almost Famous," the new Cameron Crowe film, he plays me - that is, a Rolling Stone editor, vintage 1973. In the just-released "Trixie," an ensemble film featuring Emily Watson, Nathan Lane and Nick Nolte, Chen is Nolte's "private waiter." In Jet Li's "Romeo Must Die," he was Kung, an up-and-coming gang overlord. And, now, the Vancouver, B.C.-based Chen has taken on the role of the Crown Counsel in "DaVinci's Inquest," a popular police drama from CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. That may be a recurring role, as well as one in "The Fearing Mind," a new series on the Fox Family Network. "There," he says, "I play a stereotypical Asian who's all caught up in kung fu. But it's a funny show."

     It's been a funny year since the 25 year-old Chen got cast to play me in "Almost Famous." He visited Dianne and me in San Francisco on his way to the set in Los Angeles, and we made an instant connection. I began referring to him as my own "Mini Me," and when I visited him on the set, he was being called "Chen Fong-Torres." Lunching together recently, I discovered that we had similar culinary likes (fried calamari) and dislikes (olives!).

Terry and Ben (far right) sit on the set of "Almost Famous" with director-writer Cameron Crowe (center) and (far left) Rainn Wilson, who plays Rolling Stone writer David Felton, and Felton.

     And, now, the film is out. Even before it was, it got raves from those who saw previews. "Almost Famous" is a beautifully written paean to rock and roll, family, and love. Mine is a minor character, but Chen should get some nice notices, working in such a high-profile film--Crowe's first since "Jerry Maguire." It's certainly a higher profile than he enjoyed in "Romeo Must Die," in which his character was killed off in the second of two scenes, or in "Trixie," which is being booed off screens everywhere.

     Chen came to San Francisco to attend a preview and reception for "Almost Famous." At the Galaxy Theater, sitting alongside Dianne and me, he saw the film for the first time, pronounced himself amazed at the quality of the movie, and accepted congratulations from many of the 400 in attendance.

     Later, I asked him about the challenges of playing a real-life (more or less) character. Here's part of our conversation. And please excuse Terry's excessively laudatory comments. He's young.

TC: The most important factor I was concerned with was to portray you as close and with as much realism as possible.

BFT: What's the importance of realism in this case, since the film is partly fictionalized?

TC: But there are so many key elements that are not fictional as well, in terms of some of the people involved in rock and roll. They (might) see the film and they'll know you, because you are such a legendary rock writer... I didn't want to stray too far from the real Ben Fong-Torres. So when I met you (last year, just before shooting the scenes), I wanted to pick up various of your idiosyncrasies. And Cameron had laid out a couple of key terms, like "crazy," and intonations in your DJ voice were important as well. There was also the way you sat back and gripped your phone over your head. And the stance. The way you stood.

Terry Chen as Ben Fong-Torres on the set of "Almost Famous."

BFT: Although I'm old and bent over now. Was there anything you picked up from me - like the way I'd prop a leg up on my desk - that freaked Cameron out?

TC: There were a few things he kind of freaked out about. A lot of it was simple actions like that, and mannerisms and whatnot that we have that are comparable to each other. I remember (your wife) Dianne mentioning that when she first met me, there was a tinge of something that she recognized. And that might have been the intangible thing that Cameron was looking for, that came through on my tape, when he did his auditions.

BFT: Do you know how many people were looked at for this role?

TC: Oh, god, it was in the hundreds. I ran into an actor on the set of "DaVinci's Inquest" who's from L.A., and he's friends with Jason Scott Lee ("The Bruce Lee Story") and that whole circle of young male Asian actors down there, and he was saying that all his friends had auditioned for the role; at least 20 or 30 of them were reading for it or trying to get in. And this kid from Canada gets it.

BFT: So they all hate you!

TC: Oh, yeah. For sure!

BFT: It's a plum role, I suppose, given the scarcity of roles for Asians in general, and the fact that it's Cameron's follow-up to "Jerry Maguire."

TC: And playing you - that's a big deal.

BFT: I wouldn't know about that, especially with people in their twenties not knowing much about me.

TC: I think people who have a true affinity for it will have a knowledge of rock and roll and writing, so??/font>