That remarkable personal journey, from Red Army propaganda movies to glamorous Hollywood roles directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and David Lynch, could not appear more different to Chen's character in new coming-of-age film "Didi."
Chen plays Chungsing, a Taiwanese single mom and frustrated artist in California, whose 13-year-old is too busy trying to impress his skater friends and navigate adolescent crushes to be nice to his family.
Yet the role -- which is already earning Oscars buzz -- "poured out of me, because that's the life I've lived," Chen told AFP.
"I am, like Chungsing, an immigrant mother, who raised two American children -- with such an intimate, loving relationship, but also fraught with cultural chasm, misunderstanding, unmet expectations," she said.
It all started for Chen, aged 14, when she was spotted by a film director who worked for Chairman Mao's wife Jiang Qing.
"The director picked me out of school, then sent my dossier and my pictures for her to approve," recalls Chen.
"I was so happy that I happened to be the type that they needed. It wasn't my dream. I never thought about it, when they picked me to be an actress. And then slowly, I learned to love it."
She quickly became a beloved movie star in 1970s China -- a job that spared her from being sent to work in rural provinces during the devastating Cultural Revolution.
Chen moved to the US at age 20, studying film but skeptical about her prospects as an Asian woman in Hollywood.
She landed a lead role in Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor," as the wife of China's final dynastic ruler. The film won nine Oscars, including best picture.
Yet Chen, now 63, recalls: "Back then, there just weren't any Asian filmmakers or scriptwriters who could create a part for me."
"I could have been this ingenue, this breakout new lead (actress)... So that was a shame. Nothing could really follow up."
'Still here'
In "Didi," out in theaters on August 16, Chen's character is a talented artist who had to forsake her ambitions for her family, in their new country.
Chungsing is stoic, quietly bearing her disappointment while devoting herself to her frequently oblivious, Americanized children.
Unlike her character, Chen continued to work prolifically through parenthood, acting and directing in both the US and Asian film industries.
Chen's part as femme fatale Josie Packard in "Twin Peaks" remains popular with fans of the cult TV series to this day.
But her Western roles have failed to match the success of her early career.
And she still reflects on the "night and day" difference between her daughters' experience growing up in the West, and her own arrival in the United States as an immigrant, with "that uncertainty of the ground you're standing on."
"The pains and joys we see in the film is a lived experience for myself as well," said Chen.
With "Didi" winning awards at the Sundance film festival, there are hints of a late-career comeback. Chen and director Sean Wang are earning mentions as dark horses for the next Academy Awards.
"I am so thrilled that young filmmakers like Sean exist... when there are enough scriptwriters, directors, then you create more parts for people who look like them," she said.
"It's wonderful. And I'm so happy that I'm still here."
