We just couldn't get enough of Hong Kong actress-du-jour Maggie Cheung. So, here before you we present an exclusive PAPERMAG interview French journalist Alex Jordanov conducted with Cheung that did not appear in our March 2006 issue.
Maggie Cheung meets me at Café Baci in the Marais. The restaurant belongs to French actor and filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bacri. She has just returned from a weeklong tour of South Africa as a representative for the platinum industry. Her trip consisted of photo shoots, visiting platinum/gold mines and wildlife safaris.
Alex Jordanov: Why did you decide do Clean, such a risky script?
Maggie Cheung: For years, my then husband [director Olivier Assayas] was looking to write a part for me. He wrote Clean for me. It took five years for the project to mature. Clean was important for me to do. I was shooting 2046, but my heart was waiting for Clean. On 2046, I never really got involved in the part and Wong Kar-Wai wasn't as close to me as usual. 2046 was work. Clean was something else. I chose to do it over another project.
AJ: In Clean you play an unusual role for you: a dope addicted mother, trying to retain custody of her child. It's difficult to know what dope addicts go through if you've never been addicted. How did you manage?
MC: I never did heroin. We lived in Paris and a lot of the people Olivier knew were addicted, and I was watching first hand the destruction, the pain and the behavior. Addicts lie relentlessly and lie to themselves. They try to hide their addiction and cover up their weaknesses with the drug. There's a certain shame in doing heroin. Socially, it's way worse than any other drug. When I came to Paris from London, I had never seen so many drugs. It was all around me, the daily chase for money to buy drugs, the lies. It is an exhausting life. I didn't have to go through it to figure that out.
AJ: Were you surprised that the movie was well received in Europe and not so in America?
MC: Hollywood delivers a very different product from what is done here.
AJ: Where did you grow up?
MC: I came to London from Hong Kong at age 8, and was immediately sent to boarding school in Kent. Kids hadn't seen Chinese counterparts in those days. I didn't speak a word of English. Prejudice was big.
AJ: Where do you live now?
MC: I spend 50 percent of my time in Hong Kong, 25 percent of my time in Paris and the rest in London or on the road.
AJ: So, most of your movies were made in Hong Kong?
MC: I went back to Hong Kong at 16 and entered beauty pageants and shot commercials. I made 68 movies in 12 years, mostly action and police films. I took a two-year sabbatical after realizing this is where I did not want to go with my career. Since the two-year break, I made six more movies in the past 10 years, carefully choosing the characters. In In the Mood for Love, for example, we wrote my part with Kar-Wai, as we went along on the shoot. We talked about it for three or four months before we started filming. Then, we'd sit around the set or trailer and we'd re-write the script on the spot. I had just watched Touch, an Ingmar Bergman film, and thought an 'affair film' would be great. That's how we came up with the idea for Mood. Kar-Wai changed my career. He talks to you. He gets into your state of mind, and then makes you understand the characters. He takes you seriously. With him, I became an actress, I moved away from the "action-packed actress" label. I became conscious of my work.
AJ: Mood and Clean are movies that revolve around pain and mental suffering; themes that often run through Chinese films. Why do you think that is?
MC: Chinese people suffer more than Westerners. In England, everything is said. In Hong Kong things are not said even within the family. There is a lot of silence. That cultural gap/difference is there.
AJ: Why did you turn down the role of a Bond girl?
MC: The Bond girl image will stick with you forever. People will only know you for that. That's unacceptable.
AJ: China is changing rapidly. Economically it is close to a liberal model. But artists still have a hard time expressing themselves --
MC: [Interrupts] Not true. It's still difficult to get visas to leave. A vast majority still lives under the poverty line and the Communist Party still runs this huge country. But new artists are "surfacing." Movies are made normally. It's not Bollywood yet, but considering the potential market, maybe 15 years from now...
AJ: Do you think today you could make and finance a Chinese version of Clean and have a Chinese Emily [Cheung's character] deal with the same issues of heroin addiction and child custody?
MC: Yes. As long as you show the devastation of drugs and do not encourage drug use, you could address the legal and social problems that result from heroin addiction. You know, the East has always been fascinated with the West as opposed to the West being fascinated with Asian clichés.
AJ: What are you working on right now?
MC: For the past couple of months, I've just been reading scripts. I'm in no rush to work.
AJ: Who would you like to work with in America?
MC: I would crawl on my hands and knees... No, no, I would die to work with David Lynch.
AJ: Now that you've "crossed over," do you have your eye on Hollywood? Do you plan to get an agent over there?
MC: No! I know what would happen over there. I look at Hollywood movie posters and I know what to expect. I do not want more fame or more money. I am happy with what I have. I do not want to make a film to make a film. I just want to have a nice life -- not a career.
AJ: We'll never see you in King Kong then?
MC: I like Naomi Watts. But I don' t like calculated films where you know you're going to smile every eight minutes and that there's going to be a twist in the script every 12 minutes. I like to be surprised.
AJ: What was the last Hollywood movie you liked?
MC I like the choices Johnny Depp has made as an actor. That's his strength, besides being a versatile and wonderful actor. He surprises me every time. He's the antithesis of Brad Pitt.
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