Calgary’s Terry Chen comes home in gritty Alberta drama “Lucky Star”

Terry Chen is no stranger to Hollywood — you’ve seen him in House of Cards, Almost Famous, Jessica Jones, and The Last of Us. But his latest film — a tense, homegrown drama called Lucky Star — brought him somewhere even more meaningful: home.

“Lucky Star was one of the first projects that brought me back to Alberta,” Chen says. “It’s been such a great revisit.”

Born in Edmonton and raised in Calgary, Chen grew up in Woodbine, went to Chinook Park Elementary, and graduated from Western Canada High School. He laughs now about his teenage years — wearing cowboy boots to school, unsure how to fit in.

“I’ve often said — and I don’t know if this is politically correct or not — but I feel like I’m more redneck than Asian, you know, at times,” he says. “There was a lot of identity stuff going on… but my heart is definitely here.”

That same complexity — the intersections of identity, culture, and belonging — run through Lucky Star, the sophomore feature from director Gillian McKercher (Circle of Steel).

Shot entirely in Calgary with a local production team, Lucky Star tells the story of a reformed gambler trying to dig himself out of a tax scam by returning to poker. His family, desperate in their own ways, walks a similar tightrope — making difficult choices that blur the line between survival and deception.

“Calgary was very much a character in this piece,” Chen says. “Especially in the dead of winter — how isolating and obviously cold it is. But it is a visual narrative that… speaks to this certain amount of desperation for hope that we look for in the winter sometimes when you’re in Alberta.”

The film was a hit at the FascinAsian Film Festival in Calgary this past weekend — and plays this weekend at the Globe Cinema.

For Chen, this film is about more than just a strong story. It’s a reflection of how Alberta — and Calgary specifically — has changed since his days as a kid who didn’t see himself on screen.

“If there weren’t a lot of people that I could identify with, to be totally honest with you, Andrea… as an Asian kid growing up in Alberta, I was getting picked on a lot,” he says. “So it’s so important to have films like Lucky Star that are representative of cultures that are not necessarily prominent in places like Alberta — which is changing.”

Cinema, he says, gave him solace. It still does.

“There are times in our lives… when we lose people that we love, we turn to music, we turn to film, we turn to art… to not only have a collective sense of not being so alone, but also to express grief and happiness and all these different emotions that carry us through the day,” Chen adds.

Lucky Star plays this weekend at the Globe Cinema, with a Q&A featuring Terry Chen after the screening.

Tickets available through the Globe Cinema website.