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At the beginning, Edo was a photographer, and I was more of a talent scout and doing styling and modelling. Then all of a sudden, in 1977, he gave me a Polaroid camera, and I discovered that instead of having to go to a lab and develop the film, I could just take a click and get a picture! It was genius, and I was very good at manipulating it.
As a means to an end, modelling was good, but I had to distance myself from it when I started working as an actress, because even though I wasn't high-profile, I found in my first write-ups that I'd be referred to as 'model Gemma Chan.'
Heading to Paris when I was 17 and modelling exposed me to high fashion, which influenced me to dress on-trend - not extravagantly, but always in fashion.
My dad was fine about me doing modelling at 16 because I always said school was important to me. I always chose my jobs carefully so I wouldn't have to take too much time off. It got harder toward the end with my A-levels; there were sleepless nights, and I was doing my homework on the plane coming home, but I pulled through.
Acting is something I'm interested in, and I'll keep going to auditions, but modelling is my main job.
Modelling, it's being an artist as well. It's just being a silent artist. It takes a lot of self-control and a lot of discipline.
Business analytics or predictive modelling is a $100 billion industry, and $41 billion is spent on outsourced business analytics every year. I think that's about twice the size of the movie industry - it's really big.
Modelling is an incredible platform.
I think with modelling and acting these days, the lines are blurred. Everyone can do all sorts of things, so why do just one?
There's no way I would have got to see so much of the world, with my humble background, without modelling. We were penniless and hungry for most of my youth. I washed the sheets in the bathtub in my bedroom and hung them out of the window on the clothes line, which in winter was difficult as the sheets would freeze and get stuck to the line.