Tony Leung
May 2005
Beverly Hills

Tony Leung is a Hong Kong superstar – a celebrity pin-up with artistic integrity. His work spans more than blockbuster thrillers like the Infernal Affairs series; he’s won awards and secured enough kudos from critics for a lifetime for his work with masterful directors like Yimou Zhang (Hero) and Wong Kar-Wai, for whom Leung appears in his latest work, 2046.

Leung and Wong have become comfortable working together over five films; they began with 1990’s Days of Being Wild, an award-winning character drama set in 1960’s Hong Kong. The theme of the film set a pattern that’s become apparent in Wong’s work while the manner of making these movies has stayed just as creative and unpredictable, despite a common time period or place. With the films another pattern has emerged, which is one of breaking new ground, defying conventional narrative structure, and engaging audiences of all types no matter where they live or what language they speak.

Leung’s acting has a lot to do with the success of Wong’s work. His image is instantly compelling – definitely never in-your-face but more of a subtle power that grabs the viewer on a much deeper level and never lets go. He won the best actor prize at Cannes in 2000 with Wong’s In the Mood for Love and revisits the character of Chow Mo Wan in 2046, which Wong describes as a story that picks up where In the Mood left off. It’s the story of an artist, a writer – perhaps Wong, perhaps Leung, perhaps many of us – having a hard time separating his work from reality. Are the characters he creates based on real people, or does he project his characters onto the people out of fantasy that those creations could come true?

The other question that 2046 struggles with is one of memory, that fine line between not being able to remember something or not choosing to remember it. “All memories are traces of tears” is what the film tells us; in his production notes, Wong writes, “There is a need in all of us to have a place to hide or to store certain memories, thoughts, impulses, hopes and dreams.” For an artist, that more often than not is the work they produce, and no doubt this is the case for both Wong and Leung, for upon seeing their work up on screen there is no question they have infused 2046 with a great deal of their own emotion and sense memory.

Though today he appears tired, Leung insists he’s just fine, despite all the traveling he’s done lately to promote 2046. Throughout the conversation it becomes apparent that his quiet, deliberate demeanor is a completely natural state, not one caused by exhaustion or overwork. He takes time considering each question and delivers his answers with emphasis after a thoughtful pause, but never with a raised voice or dramatic gestures. It's the subtle charm he's become well known for.

You’re flying back to Hong Kong tonight – are you going back to work or are you doing more promotion for 2046?

No, this is the last stop, the final country, so I’m not doing anything at all, just preparing for my next project.

And that’s already in the works?

No, we are going to shoot it next year. It's with Wong Kar-Wai again; we’re going to do a kung fu theme and I have to practice.

Is it set in modern times?

No, also in the 60’s. (Laughs)

What’s with the 60s? What’s the appeal of that period? You were just a small child in the 60s, right?

I was born in the 60s, but I have a lot of memories of the 60s and Wong Kar-Wai reminds me a lot of that period of time.

I know it’s a revolutionary period for many different places around the world, but the depiction of the 60s in 2046 and Wong's films have been more internal revolutions, I think – you know, revolutions of the soul or identity at that time period while the rest of the world was going through revolutions of change and race relations. Over the six films you've done with Wong Kar-Wai, what has worked right from the start that you haven’t changed and what are the kinds of things that you’ve had to change or that you’ve worked out over the years about working together?

The thing we don’t change is we work without a script. (Laughs) His actors and actresses used to be very, very frustrated in the middle of the shoot because you don’t have a specific direction, you don’t know what’s going on. You only know a little bit, little hints about your character. That seems to be unchanged. No one really knows what he wants, what’s in his mind. The things that have changed are we’ve become more mature. (Laughs) And he’s the father of a child now…

Has he settled down now?

Yeah, he’s more like a family man.

Do you prefer one type of work over another or do you like the balance of having scripted work, like what you did in Hero, and then going with Wong Kar-Wai and doing the free improvisation thing?

I prefer both; it’s a different kind of approach. Although working with Kar-Wai in his way is sometimes very frustrating and very insecure, but it’s fun to do it that way once in a while because in some way you have more space in creating your character. There’s no right or wrong because he doesn’t give you a specific direction. So it seems to me more like an adventurous journey – it’s fun and you try to figure out what the story or the character will be during the shooting. But working with some other director is also fun because you can be more involved in the project; you can work out the character with the script writer and the director beforehand, before shooting, so you get very well prepared and when shooting you just do what you have planned. So it’s a different kind of making movies.

Over time, working with Wong Kar-Wai, have you become better at guessing what he wants from characters?

No. (Laughs)

It’s different every time?

It’s different every time and at the very beginning I think I’m the only one who doesn’t know what is going on and I asked a lot of people in the same crowd – I asked William Chen, “Do you know what he is trying to do?” and he said, “No, I don’t.” And I asked him, “Do you want to know?” “No, I want him to surprise me.” (Laughs) I think that’s what Kar-Wai wants from us, too; he wants us to surprise him and give him something that he would not ask for. He wants you to stimulate him, to develop your character yourself by what you think.

2046 is a continuation of sorts from In the Mood for Love, and based on the whole approach of coming into it without a script, not knowing what’s going to happen, how much did you draw upon your character from In the Mood for Love and make it a model for the character in 2046?

I worked on the mustache. (Laughs) I think it’s very difficult when Kar-Wai told me the first day that he wanted me to revisit a character again but he wants me to play it differently, a 180-degree difference from what I did in In the Mood for Love. He wants me to play a dark, mean type of man. I said it’s very difficult for me, because everything is the same – the costume and the hairstyle and the name, but to act differently I need a mustache. And he said no on the first day – he said he didn’t agree and said it’s better to do it without a mustache, everything the same but you act differently. And I said no way, I cannot do that, so we argued on the first day. (Laughs)

From then on he compromised, so I worked with the mustache first and then tried to change my gestures and my body language, even the tempo and the voice of the character. But it didn’t work very well at the beginning, in those first few months – still I would jump back to the character of Mr. Chow unconsciously. He used to remind me of whenever there’s something that goes wrong, he’d always remind me because he’s sitting in front of the monitor. That’s how my first approach to this character went.

It’s funny you bring up the mustache because at one point in the film you have half a mustache – it's like a war between those two characters. (Laughs)

Yeah, yeah, and at the end of the shoot I asked Kar-Wai, “D you think this character needs a mustache?” and he said, “Yes!” (Laughs)

It’s the littlest things that surprise you and it goes back what you were talking about, that he wants as much input from you as you want direction from him. That’s really great. You've not only worked with the same director a lot, you’ve also worked with the same actors repeatedly. I can imagine the benefits of working together – you know each other really well, but does that sometimes hinder the times when you have to be completely new characters? Are you sometimes remembering the characters that you were in previous times that you worked together, or does it make it easier every time to have that previous experience from working together?

I think that makes things easier, at least for me, working with someone that I know them well makes things easier. It’s hard for me to work with strangers; I need some time to warm up, a lot of time – we have to know each other very well. I turn on after quite a long, long time; I need to know the other very well.

Like months or years?

Years sometimes. So it’s much more easier for me to work with someone like Faye Wong or even Maggie [Cheung].

Right, to have that comfort level.

Yeah, but this time it’s really something else because I think Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi are very special and they’re very professional and that makes things really go smoothly and easily. They are too professional – like Gong Li, this is my first time working with her, and the first day we did the kissing scene. I think, “Do we need to do some warm up before doing a scene like that?” – I don’t know her quite well, but she makes me feel very comfortable the first day we’re doing the shoot. And she’s that character! I was so impressed.

She kind of pushed you to get into your professional mode of thinking. Speaking of the professional versus the personal and talking about warming up to something, I remember you talking in an interview a few years back around In the Mood for Love. You said you are a very shy person and you grew up teaching yourself how to hide your feelings, how to not be expressive, and acting gives you an outlet to be expressive.

Um-hmm. (Nods)

Do you choose roles based on a particular emotion or some sort of inner turmoil or anything that you have going on at the time that you want to get out, or do you choose roles on more professional levels – the director, the story, things like that?

It very much depends, especially if after a heavy drama like 2046 I would really prefer to do some comedies. (Laughs) At least to make myself happy at that period of time. I used to do that. If I’m in a very good mood I’ll try to do some very heavy dramas.

So it’s the opposite of life for you.

Yes. Yes, I just try to do things like that.

And after you’ve done a heavy drama, do you find yourself being very down or thoughtful for a long time? Does it stay with you and affect everything around you?

Yes. So I won’t take another heavy drama after that, especially after some really long shooting period like 2046. Somehow you just think it’s too much to do to myself; I think it means too much to me. So even though it’s a very good script and I’d be working with a very good director, but if he’s trying to do something very heavy, no, I can’t do it, not one after the other. At least I need to stop for a while or do something else.

Recover and let your family and friends recover and have a little happiness from you.

Yes. (Laughs)

Talking about somebody coming to you with a project, I’m going to ask the inevitable English language Hollywood question: How, over time, has your opinion changed about doing an English language film or a Hollywood film? Are you seeking one and if you would do one, what would the ideal circumstances be?

I still have the same thinking that I had before. In Hollywood they have the great actors and actresses from all over the world; why do they have to write a specific script or a specific role for Asian actors like me? There’s no point. And I think the roles that I could play are very restricted, but I wouldn’t mind doing one because I grew up with Hollywood movies and it would be a very memorable experience, and at least once in your lifetime you would love to do one. (Laughs) But you have to make sure that that one is one you’ll have fun with; you have to make sure that you find the right material, the right crowd of people. I think I would love to do a drama, but not some action thing.

Sure. So you would be open to doing something in the realm of Hollywood, in English, but maybe lower budget, because that seems to be the line – because, you know, there’s big budgeted stuff with action and explosions and girls and whatever, or smaller, more dramatic, more character-driven pieces that don’t cost a lot of money so there’s not a lot of risk, I guess.

I’m not concerned about risk, but what I’m concerned with is whether the project is interesting or not.

Are there any directors or writer-directors that you would really love to work with on an English language picture?

I never thought of that before…but I’m a big fan of Martin Scorsese; of course I would love to do a movie with him. But, hmm… (Laughs)

If he’s smart, he’d love to do a movie with you, too! So maybe a project will come up. It’s interesting that you have this feeling that Hollywood would only want you to do a very specific thing and it would have to do with your culture, your background, your nationality – that you don’t feel Hollywood could break free of that. To me, that’s very sad, the fact that somebody as successful as you would still be constrained by Hollywood, that they wouldn’t think you could just play a role of just a man who happens to not be Anglo Saxon or whatever. It’s just a sad commentary to me on the state of things.

Yeah, because just like what I said, there’s no point for them to write a script like that. It’s very hard to persuade them.

Hopefully things will change. We were talking about the roles you pick and how they help you express an emotion; do you also choose roles that may help you express a political or spiritual point of view, like something that takes a stand about the world or politics or anything that you wouldn’t necessarily say flat out?

No. I don’t want to ever – I want to stay away from politics and things like that.

It’s interesting to me, because something like Hero was very political, for me, because we in the States were going through so much political turmoil when that film came out tackling questions about what to fight for and how to fight and your path as an individual, everything that you do changing things. And your character to me was this great source of enlightenment in regard to a situation that was going on at the time. Did you think about that at all, when the movie was coming out and see any way it could help people think better about politics?

No, I don’t think so. Not really. For me, it’s just a love story. (Laughs)

Well, that too! (Laughs) I guess that’s the best thing is that it’s open to so much interpretation. What about doing other parts of filmmaking – directing, producing, even writing – do you have any interest or plans in that?

I’ve always wanted to produce my own films. After working with all those great directors with all those years, I don’t think I have the talent to direct.

Really?

No, no! (Laughs) Being an actor I think is very passive; everything is so far beyond your control, so after I’ve been working as an actor for 23 years, I really want to do something else, like producing, like when you come up with an idea and then you work it out, you develop it into a story with a script writer, and then when you decide what style of movie you want, you pick the director and you the actors and you make that movie happen. That would be very challenging, besides being an actor.

It would be the opposite of being passive, like you say.

Yeah. So this is what I want to do in the near future.

Do you have an idea of people you’d want to do that with? Not that you have to mention it now, but is it at that stage where you know who you would go to?

I don’t have any idea yet. (Grins) But I will probably do it.

So the next Wong Kar-Wai is going to be shot next year. You have a lot of time in between now and then.

But in between I still have to work for the same crowd from Infernal Affairs – we’re working on a story right now about detectives and a serial killer. We will try to do it not only in Hong Kong, I’m trying to line up some Asian actors from different countries because I think the trend will be pan-Asian movies, not only in one place like Hong Kong or Korean movies. Hero is a very good example where we had talents from different countries, so I will try to do it like that in our new project. After the success of Infernal Affairs I think we should do something else – no more sequels. (Laughs)

Right, because it’s three so far? That’s a good number.

Yeah, and we should try something else. Actually, we are working on the script right now, it’s called A Tale of Two Cities and we will start shooting in November, because I want the last shot to be at Christmastime so I need to time it right with all the decoration ready in December.

That’s a good point that you bring up about pan-Asian work. The whole world seems to be coming into this consciousness of globalization because of the Internet and because of technology.

Yes.

It almost seems like it’s easier for more people now than ever to watch your films without Hollywood backing or without big distribution, and I think it’s also easier for people anywhere to understand these movies and to say, “Even though this is a totally different place and time, and this person doesn’t look like me or live like me, I can get something from it.” There’s that mentality, so maybe it won’t even matter that you do anything in English or for Hollywood, because enough people already see what you do and it’s a better time than ever for that.

Yeah, yeah – but still I want to do one! (Laughs)