Chinese actress Gong Li talks to Steve Pratt about her latest role in Memoirs Of A Geisha and how wearing a kimono made her feel like an empress.

Any actor who enjoys screen success outside America usually goes off to Hollywood to try their luck in the movie capital of the world. But Chinese actress Gong Li resisted the idea until Memoirs Of A Geisha came along.

"I didn't want to play stereotypical roles, like the pretty Asian face," she says of her refusal to go Stateside. "Those roles don't seem to have much to explore. I couldn't develop anything about my own acting in those roles.

"You could find any different actress to play them, just about anybody, and they really didn't need me specifically. Memoirs Of A Geisha was a perfect opportunity and this character was a big challenge for me. After I was able to play the role, I felt, 'well, there are all sorts of other roles that I could play very easily now'."

She's been reluctant to embrace, not just America, but the whole movie star thing. "I don't see myself as a star. An actress is nothing remarkable," she said in an interview with the New York Times ten years ago.

"The main thing, of course, is the work I've done," Li says. "Everybody needs to work and have a role in society. You can't stay at home all the time. Acting is my job, it's everything I can do. As far as the star system in Hollywood, it's a matter of work.

"I've played many characters, I've performed in films and all these other things like doing magazine interviews, photo shoots and publicity interviews, that's part of work too. I don't think it has something to do with me personally. It's not about me. It's about the work.

"For example, after finishing a film, you have to go and do these interviews. If you don't do it, it will be very unprofessional. I don't feel like it's about me. I'm not trying to make myself look better. It's all about the work of the film."

Memoirs Of A Geisha is based on Arthur Golden's novel that sold more than four million copies in English and has been translated into 32 languages. Rob Marshall, Oscar-nominated for Chicago, directs the screen version with a cast that also includes Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh and Ken Wanatabe.

Her character, Hatsumomo, is the bitter rival of Sayuri, a newcomer to the world of geishas. She does her best to make the young girl's life a misery and ruin her chances of becoming a geisha.

Li sees her as a very different character to the ones she's played before - "a beautiful diamond, a woman with many different facets. Like a diamond, there are some flaws deep inside her. She has a strong relationship with love, hate and jealousy, and all these facets were very fresh to me as an actress."

For her, the process of creating a character usually starts from the inside, from the heart. "Of course I've tried to understand Hatsumomo through her make-up and her costumes, and her appearance matters too. But what really mattered to me was thinking about her inner life and getting through that with her eyes. She has a special way of looking at people and, of course, the eyes can express what is inside of you.

"Once I got that, and added the costumes, the make-up and everything, I was really able to get into the character. This took me over a month. When it finally happened, I really felt I was living as Hatsumomo on a daily basis for the whole process of shooting."

She laughs when asked how tough was it to walk in the geisha's beautiful kimonos. "When you put them on, they are very tight, especially that part in the middle. It is also very heavy. When you sit down, you cannot bend in a normal way. You have to sit in a very straight position and hold your posture. If you feel tired, you can't just bend over.

"On the other hand, when you put them on and stand straight, you start feeling taller, or feeling like an empress. It can really make you feel great. But after wearing those for a dozen hours of shooting, I felt sorry for those geishas and the notion of them having to entertain people, drinking, singing and dancing, for the whole night."

Gong Li has worked with many of China's great film-makers in films such as Red Sorghum, Raise The Red Lantern and Farewell My Concubine. Working with Rob Marshall proved very different, not least because the whole film was rehearsed before shooting scenes. "We had to memorise all the lines. They set up a simple set for us to practice on and we ran our lines, adjusting some, so we knew what we were doing when we actually started filming it. We rehearsed the whole thing before we split up the screenplay into shots, so we knew the whole script all the way through. This is something we just don't do in China. It's very refreshing and different for me. And now I'm convinced this is a very good way to work."

She talks of the recent commercialisation of Chinese cinema. This can bring improvements and developments in art and culture, but there's a downside too, she feels.

"Sometimes directors, in pursuit of high box office or to attract a bigger audience, will cast stars from the music business or dance stars and put them all together in their film. I don't think this is necessarily a good thing.

"At the same time, there is a group of young talent right now in China that says, 'maybe we should look back and develop some artistic films'. It's very important to be able to tell a good story that can move people. And some of our Chinese directors are moving in that direction now."

* Memoirs Of A Geisha (12A) opens in cinemas tomorrow.

Published: 12/01/2006