Kelly Marie Tran is an American actress. She began acting in 2011, with most of her roles being in short film and television. She came to global prominence for her role as Rose Tico in the 2017 film ' and the 2019 film '.
Her early credits consisted of primarily CollegeHumor videos and small TV roles. She landed a commercial agent in 2011, who got Tran to take improv classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade. At The Second City, Tran is part of the all-female, Asian-American improv group, Number One Son. In 2013, she starred in the web-series Ladies Like Us. In 2015, Tran was working as an assistant at a creative recruiting firm in Century City.
2015–2019: ''Star Wars''
In 2015, Tran was cast as Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Rose Tico is a rebel mechanic who joins up with main characterFinn after the sacrifice of her oldest sister, Paige Tico, a gunner trained by Resistance commander Poe Dameron. When she went to film her scenes at Pinewood Studios in early 2016, she said she was filming a small movie in Canada. With her role in The Last Jedi, Tran became the first Asian-American woman to play a main role in a Star Wars film. In 2017, she also became the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair when she appeared on the cover of the summer 2017 issue with actor John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac. Tran plays the lead role of Kaitlin Le in Radiotopia's mystery thriller podcast, Passenger List. She was a series regular on the Facebook Watch seriesSorry for Your Loss.
2020–present
Tran will play Val Little in the upcoming Disney+ series Monsters at Work. She has also been cast as Dawn in the film The Croods 2.
Personal life
Harassment and insults
Despite the critical and commercial success of The Last Jedi, Tran received online insults, many racist, from people who disliked the character of Rose Tico. In response, several prominent figures in entertainment spoke out publicly against the people who insulted Tran, including the film's director Rian Johnson, and co-stars John Boyega and Mark Hamill. Employment discrimination attorney Anthony Nguyen praised Tran for being "the first woman of color to be cast in a leading role in the Star Wars franchise". Condemning the racist insults, Nguyen remarked that "people of color, especially Asian-Americans, are grossly underrepresented in TV and film." In addition, freelance writer and journalist Nicole Karlis opined that insults about Tran's race and appearance reflected a fear of women who broke sexist stereotypes. In June 2018, more than 6 months after the film's release, Tran deleted all of her posts on Instagram after months of harassment. In August 2018, after a prolonged stretch of silence about her harassment, Tran published a first person account in the New York Times addressing the issue. Tran stated that she had become self-conscious and for a time believed what her harassers were saying.
