Why is he casting a Hong Kong Chinese actress in a film about Japanese women?
Cheung: He had been casting for a while for Japanese actresses but he couldn’t really find any that could speak English well enough. He then went to Japan on a big search and still couldn’t find any. Then he started thinking about Chinese actresses or Asian actresses–I think he’d seen Chinese Box and Comrades. He flipped through my tapes and, after seeing them, said he wanted to meet me. TIME: And you met with him? Cheung: Yes. He was very down to earth; he doesn’t seem like the most famous director in the world. And that helped a lot. He just wasn’t very Hollywood. At the screening test I read from a script Spielberg had sent me. I did it in six or seven different ways and he would say, “that’s good but try this or that or laugh or be funny”. It took an hour and by the end of it I wasn’t that optimistic, because I didn’t feel I’d really given my best. Spielberg was polite and nice and encouraging but he didn’t give me the part right there and then, so I felt that I was not going to g
Cheung: He had been casting for a while for Japanese actresses but he couldn’t really find any that could speak English well enough. He then went to Japan on a big search and still couldn’t find any. Then he started thinking about Chinese actresses or Asian actresses–I think he’d seen Chinese Box and Comrades. He flipped through my tapes and, after seeing them, said he wanted to meet me. TIME: And you met with him? Cheung: Yes. He was very down to earth; he doesn’t seem like the most famous director in the world. And that helped a lot. He just wasn’t very Hollywood. At the screening test I read from a script Spielberg had sent me. I did it in six or seven different ways and he would say, that’s good but try this or that or laugh or be funny. It took an hour and by the end of it I wasn’t that optimistic, because I didn’t feel I’d really given my best. Spielberg was polite and nice and encouraging but he didn’t give me the part right there and then, so I felt that I was not going to get
