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AC Team's Wendy Chan was invited to interview the stars of "In the Mood for Love," at a round table discussion at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles.
A Wong Kar-wai film, "In the Mood for Love," a USA Films release, marks the fifth film that both Maggic Cheung and Tony Leung, two of Hong Kong's most famed and admired movie stars have appeared in. Maggie has worked with Wong Kar-wai four times. Features: In the Mood for Love Official Site Profiles
Maggie Cheung: We can start with that! (Laughter) Well, they were not exactly easy to wear, because we're in very comfortable clothes these days, and it took me some time to get used to the dresses, to actually feel natural in them, because they really gave me a lot of limitations on my movement. Because I remember at the beginning of the shoot, Kar-wai would say, "You've been this lazy thing on the bed, you just stretch yourself and reach out and get something," and I tried to do that and you reach out and all the poppers come off and the whole dress would come open, and I said, "You know, I don't think I can do that." And he goes, "No, I don't think that's a good idea." But from that, I think that's how the character was built in the end, because of the limitations of her movement, that she became very reserved and restrained on how she held herself as a person. AC Team: Did you pick them yourself? Cheung: No, we had a real good art director who found the fabrics and got them custom made for me. And each one of them had to be fitted about five to six times to get it really perfect. Q: How do you think the audience in general, particularly the Asian audience, will react to the topic of infidelity, which isn't often talked about in public? Cheung: Well, I think that there have been lots of films made on this subject, on affairs or simply love. But this one is a little different in the way that it was told. It's the same subject that we've known?�from millions of other films, but this one somehow leaves a lot of space for the audience to interpret what really happens to these two people. The film only suggests, this is the situation, so what really happens is up to the audience. And I think it becomes less offensive, because you are not made to believe in something. Q: Tony told us that this was a sort of revenge movie. How about you? Cheung: I think this woman is more the victim than his character in the film, and I think also my character is probably somebody who has been through some kind of pain or rejection in her life that she built a wall. And looking how she looks, it's something that she needs to hide the fragile side of her. She looks very proper and beautiful and straight to other people. But I think his character had the motivation for revenge, but for me it's more direct. It's like I needed this person to share this with me after I found out about my husband and his wife that my world was shattered, and I really didn't know how to react to it. And he was the only person there who could share this with me, and somehow along the way we built something on our own. Q: How is preparing a role for a Wong Kar-wai film different than preparing any role for other directors? Cheung: Well, basically there is no preparation. (Laughter) I mean I did try to prepare once I found out it was a film on an affair. I tried to think about it and imagine it and asked many questions like, "What should I do? What is my character?" And Kar-wai would give me answers that are not true, which I would find out very soon after he tells me, okay, this is what you do. I'll say, "Oh okay, I'll go home and be happy for two days because I have something to work on," but three days later it's like, "That's not what you told me the other day. This is something else." And I'll be constantly??for the first few months of the shoot, being very disappointed and frustrated and angry at him. "What's going on?" You know? I need to have some structure to work on. But finally in the end I just gave up on that and didn't try anything else. I just went with the flow and realized this is the way it's going to be. We are going to work on the script and the characters and the mood for the film along the way with what we shot. We looked at the dailies from the day before, and then talked about what was good and what was bad from that day, and it was built from there. So it was a very unusual way, but in the end it worked out. Page 2 of 3 --------------------
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