Starz’s beloved cater-waiter comedy hit awfully close to home when Chao was still hustling to make ends meet at a bar. She’s less worried about that now.
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By Coralie Kraft
“To center myself this morning, I wrote a list of things I love and things I hate,” the actor Zoë Chao said on a drizzly afternoon last month at the sumptuous Russian Tea Room, in Manhattan. As she talked, she plucked a miniature blini from a silver tower in the middle of our table.
“I don’t have a strong attachment to self,” she continued, examining the glistening beads of black caviar on her tiny pancake. “That’s good for surviving different environments, because you can adapt. But when I’m forced to articulate myself, I go into a flop sweat.”
She grinned and downed the blini in one bite.
Had Chao chosen a different career, her malleability might’ve been a hindrance. But as an actor, her ability to try on and shed varying traits is bearing fruit. This year, Chao, 37, is appearing in a collection of roles that speak to her range, including the much-anticipated return of “Party Down,” on Starz, which is closing in on its Season 3 finale. Still to come, Season 2 of the Apple TV+ murder mystery comedy “The Afterparty,” beginning in April; “If You Were the Last,” a sci-fi romance, which festival goers previewed at South by Southwest this month; and the dramatic film “Nightbitch,” slated for summer, alongside Amy Adams.
In the 13 years since it first went off the air, “Party Down” has accrued cult status, but when it premiered, in 2009, many critics didn’t know what to make of the series, and it was canceled after two seasons. The comedy-drama series follows a group of waiters — mostly aspiring actors or writers — working for a catering company in metropolitan Los Angeles. The six-episode third season, which debuted last month, picks up with most of the original cast, plus a few new members, including Chao.
In the show, Chao plays the truculent, egoistic chef Lucy Dang. As a chef, Chao’s Lucy might receive mixed reviews. One of her creations, which she presents, straight-faced, as a “rumination on mortality,” pairs delicate sweetness with dank Camembert. Entirely unconcerned with the client’s gustatory enjoyment, Lucy considers herself an artiste, creating food for unsophisticated palates, and Chao plays her with the utmost seriousness.
John Enbom, one of the show’s creators, said in a video call that “Zoë had a very fulfilling take on the character from the get-go.” Lucy had originally been written as “ferocious” and “kind of angry,” he explained, but “Zoë took that and added the extra assumption that nobody got what Lucy was doing, and that kept her from being too abrasive.”
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