HONG KONG - Gong Li has worked with Chinese directors who don't use
scripts and those who are keen on structure. She's also worked with Hollywood
filmmakers. Now, the Chinese actress says she's ready for anything.
 Actresses Andie MacDowell (L), Gong Li (C), and Kerry
Washington arrive for the evening gala screening of Chinese director Wong
Kar Wai's in-competition film "My Blueberry Nights" at the 60th Cannes
Film Festival May 16, 2007. [Reuters]
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"When I first started in the movie industry I worked with Zhang Yimou. He's
the kind of director who has to figure everything out and have a very good
script before he starts to shoot ... Later I worked with Wong Kar-wai. I was
really challenged. Then I worked with Hollywood directors," Gong was quoted as
saying in an interview with Hong Kong's Ming Pao Weekly magazine published over
the weekend.
Hong Kong director Wong has a reputation for not using a script and
improvising.
"Now I'm not afraid of anything," she reportedly said at the recent Cannes
Film Festival.
Gong's credits include the Zhang-directed "Raise the Red Lantern," "To Live,"
Wong's "2046" and more recently, the English-language movies "Memoirs of a
Geisha," "Miami Vice" and "Hannibal Rising."
Gong said despite Wong's unorthodox ways, she was reluctant to leave the set
of the short film Wong shot for the movie "Eros."
"After more than 20 hours, I was thinking, 'I'm about to die. It'll be great
when we finish.' The next 10-plus hours went smoothly. My scenes were finally
done when it was nearly morning ... At that moment, I actually didn't want to
leave, because I was totally immersed," she said.
Gong said she enjoyed Wong's new movie, "My Blueberry Nights," in which
singer Norah Jones plays a New Yorker who tries to cure her broken heart with a
cross-country road trip.
"I really liked the lives and desires of the characters. Wong Kar-wai has
kept his color scheme," she said, an apparent reference to Wong's preference for
moody colors.