“My mum and my dad are here with me as well so I’m really excited to be back. We’re planning to visit the places my dad used to go to. My memories of Hong Kong are so vivid. I remember we took a boat ride in the 1990s and we took a ferry ride around the island and just the sights and the smells. There’s nothing like it.”

It’d be quite safe to say that since Crazy Rich Asians opened in theatres last August, life hasn’t been quite the same for Chan. The law graduate has hit a new momentum in her career which until now has been interesting albeit hardly visible; her biggest claims to fame being guest parts on television, including Dr Who and detective series Sherlock, another small role in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them , and the longest one playing the part of a robot in the Channel 4 sci-fi series Humans.

Since she glided elegantly onscreen as the rich and posh Astrid Leong-Teo in Crazy Rich Asians, however, her face has graced international magazine covers and she has already followed up with a role as Bess of Hardwick in Mary Queen of Scots and then, as the blue-faced alien sharpshooter Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel.

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“I just feel very, very grateful to have those opportunities and seeing how much Crazy Rich Asians has meant to people and to my own family. I took my mum and dad to the London premiere and it was a really emotional experience for us, watching a film made in Hollywood where people looked like us,” says Chan, who was originally asked to read for the lead role of Rachel but requested to read for Astrid because she “felt more of a connection”.

Chan, a one-time teen national swimmer and budding violinist, recalls her father trying to dissuade her from abandoning a promising legal career for the uncertainty of acting and her telling him that she “just wanted to make a change”.

“I felt really passionate about it. Sometimes you just have to take a risk. Sometimes you have to risk failing to have the chance of being part of a change,” Chan says. “I feel very fortunate that things have panned out the way they have, that Kevin Kwan wrote those books, and that Jon Chu did something so brilliant with them, and Warner Brothers was willing to take a chance on it. Everything just came together.

“And now I just hope it’s going to open the door for others. I don’t want to be the only successful Asian actress or British Asian actress. Especially when we’ve established there’s so much talent out there.”

With her roots in Hong Kong, and the city being the Hollywood of the East, it’s not surprising it had been suggested to Chan during her earlier days as an actress that she might have better luck trying her career in Hong Kong.

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“To be honest, you already have so many home-grown stars here. And I wanted to work for what really meant something to me, which was to make sure I carved out a place in the UK and then partly in the US,” adds the actress, who grew up in Kent.

“What’s really good for me is to find stories that aren’t just pigeonholing Asians in Asia. I think Crazy Rich Asians is a wonderful example of an Asian story but it’s also about the diaspora and what it’s like for Asian people living everywhere. And, some of the similarities and differences between people who have lived in the US, like Rachel and her mum, and then they come back here and struggle between two worlds. That is something really ripe to be explored.”

The 36-year-old, who worked briefly as a model to put herself through acting class at Drama Centre London, is certainly putting her money where her mouth is. On the Crazy Rich Asians publicity tours, Chan – with the help of her stylist – made sure to wear Asian designers.

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“I was really moved by the fact that there was a group of designers and people from the fashion world who rallied behind our film, by hosting early screenings of the film and helping to put the word out. It seemed like it was the first cultural milestone everyone could rally behind and I thought, how can I repay them? If I’m going to have to do this press tour and wear lots of outfits, I thought wouldn’t it be great if I could shine a light on these Asian designers and give them a bit of a boost?”

“We really wanted the looks in the press tour to reflect the values of the film,” adds Chan, who was dressed in yet another Chinese designer, Huishan Zhang, for St Regis’ opening dinner.

Chan is not about to stop there. She’s already starting a production company to help “lift other people up”.

“I’m very interested in developing stories and going into producing things that are not necessary for me to act in,” says Chan. “And it’s about finding those. Stories that haven’t been told that have been lost to history. I’m sure there’ll be many obstacles but I just feel like I don’t want to squander this opportunity, like, oh, we’ve done this amazing film and that’s it for another 25 years. I want the opportunities to keep coming.”

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