HOW DIFFICULT WAS THE CHALLENGE OF HAVING TO SPEAK MANDARIN CHINESE DIALOGUE?
[long drawn sigh] Did it show? [laughs] Well, I don’t read Chinese. It was indeed a great challenge in that sense. But you know, I had my dialogue coach and Ang with me, who is such a perfectionist and who would just grill me until I got it right. It was first about understanding, then after that digesting, then pure memorizing all these different sounds and being very accurate. And oh no, I was hoping that it didn’t show. My character lived outside of Beijing, and so I didn’t have to do the Beijing accent. MY MOTHER-IN-LAW HAS THIS STRANGE SZECHUAN-MANDARIN ACCENT THAT’S HARD FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND. Yes, provinces all have their very own strong accents. When we first started the movie, Cheng Pei Pei was going to have her accent, and Chang Zhen [who played Lo] was going to have his accent, and this person would have that accent. And in the end nobody could understand what they were saying. Forget about us, even the crew from Beijing thought this was all weird. SO WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST CH
