Gemma Chan knows what it’s like to feel pressure to have children.
The ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ actress is set to star in ‘I Am Hannah’, which is about being childless in your 30s, and admits she only knows too well from her friends what it is like to feel the pressure to start a family.
Relating to her character in ‘I Am Hannah’, she told BBC News: "I think it’s interesting that women do get asked a lot about what their plans are – are they going to have kids, do they plan to get pregnant – perhaps more so than men get asked. And to a certain extent I do think that that is someone else’s business and we shouldn’t be necessarily asking them that. A lot of the stuff that comes up in this [drama] comes up in discussions that I’ve had with my girlfriends, my mum, my sister. I definitely have friends who’ve felt under similar pressures to what Hannah’s going through. I wouldn’t say my experience is completely her experience at all, there are a lot of differences, but it’s definitely drawn from life."
Gemma previously opened up about the "crazy" and "unrealistic" pressure on women and hates that society expects women to settle down within a short space of time and views deviations outside of that as wrong.
She said: "I think it’s crazy how getting pregnant is drilled into you as the worst thing that could happen to you when you’re a teenager or in your early 20s. Then suddenly when you got your mid-30s, the message is that you’re running out of time.
"You essentially have a few years where you’re supposed to meet the right person, settle down and start a family. I think that can be quite unrealistic."
Gemma Chan feels baby pressure
