Feature Interview by Ivan Waterman
IF, by any chance, an actress should be reading this she might heed the words of actress Ziyi Zhang. What do you do if you don't speak a word of English and you want the starring role in Steven Spielberg's new epic?
There she was, trembling, being ushered into a hotel suite to face the world's most famous film director and the man in search of the girl to star in his historic epic Memoirs of a Geisha. A bi-lingual friend whispered a few words of what turned out to be superb advice into her ear.
"I was just so frightened" she says, almost in the vein of a mite meeting Father Christmas. "I mean, so many actresses wanted this part. So what can I do? I thought I had none of the qualifications he might want but I knew in my heart I could do it.
"So, there he is, this Mr. ET, standing there staring at me. I just smiled. He said "Nice to meet you" and I said, quite loudly: 'Hire me!'. About a year later he approached me and said: 'You see, it worked! I hired you!'"
Indeed he did. And so today Ziyi (say "Zee") stands on the brink of becoming the Orient's most revered acting export since Jackie Chan or Chow Yun-Fat (with apologies to the multi-talented Burt Kwouk) due to her role in the mesmeric Memoirs of a Geisha.
Ziyi, who is 26, and as about as cute as they come, has a doll-like face which already adorns thousands of hoardings worldwide as the impoverished child who is snatched from her family to become one of Japan's most celebrated geishas.
Her porcelain features are already well known in China. She displayed her enormous potential while still at drama college in Beijing in Ang Lee's award winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. More recently, she wowed the media at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival promoting House of Flying Daggers.
She also had a brush with Hollywood making the martial arts meets Sunset Strip action yarn Rush Hour 2 with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. But, as you'd expect from a diplomat's daughter, she doesn't rave on about her California experience.
Ziyi is one of the new breed of young Chinese, with ambitions far removed from her roots and yet realistic enough not to want to re-locate to New York. Not for the moment, anyway.
Her father is a Chinese government economics advisor who understands the old guard while her mother was a kindergarten teacher. Their daughter went to dance school for seven grueling years before her heart, as she put it, pointed her towards acting.
Her meeting with the mercurial Spielberg took place soon after she had read American author Arthur Golden's sweeping novel which spent two years on the New York Times best seller list.
The $100 million movie adaptation follows in the wake of several insightful Western movie probes into cultures of the Orient, ranging from Bernardo Bertolucci's magnificent historical essay The Last Emperor to the more recent Edward Zwick action adventure The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise.
Director Rob Marshall came to Memoirs of a Geisha fresh from Oscar winning exploits on the musical Chicago to set about the mammoth task of re-constructing pre-Second World War Japan and a hanamachi (a district inhabited by geishas) in Ventura Farms, a huge horse ranch in the hills an hour's drive north of Los Angeles.
Marshall also spent time in Kyoto with key members of his team immersing themselves in the atmosphere of kimono factories and spring festival dances, including an evening of geisha entertainment at the exclusive Ichiriki Teahouse. His film had to be perfect to the last detail.
But, as he admits, the crunch was whether diminutive Ziyi could handle the role of the heroine of the story, a youngster stolen from her village as a nine year old but destined to become the legendary geisha Sayuri.
She had to age from 15 to 30, learn how to walk on nine inch high platform shoes while dressed in a figure hugging kimono and play the ancient harp-like shamisen. She also had to perform all the duties associated with the geisha arts. Many hours were spent toiling in classes she was not allowed to miss.
Relaxing at the Mandarin Hotel overlooking Hyde Park, she says: "I was under this enormous pressure. I had to live up to so many expectations. I had to give of my best 24 hours a day. It was very tough and very wonderful.
"To research, I went to Kyoto to meet geishas. I wanted to know why they wanted to become geishas. Their families were very proud of them. They are continuing the tradition of Japanese culture. But times have changed. Today, they can get married or have boyfriends. Real geishas take 10 years learning their craft. This is what I also had to do, inside a year. It was a big challenge.
"Making a Hollywood film was fun but they want stereotypes, like the poor girl from China or the victim or the prostitute. I think I have more ability than that.
I like dollars but I prefer to work in films people will talk about in ten years."
In Memoirs of a Geisha her mentor is played by the delicious ex James Bond girl Michelle Yeoh. So, how does she feel about one day maybe becoming a 007 dreamgirl?
The suite fills with the sound of her giggling: "Now that, yes, that I think I can handle!"
© Ivan Waterman
Courtesy of BAFTA FILM AWARDS BROCHURE
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