{"id":655096,"date":"2026-05-08T02:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T02:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/655096\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T02:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T02:59:13","slug":"tony-leung-on-silent-friend-lea-seydoux-and-ryusuke-hamaguchi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/655096\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Leung on Silent Friend, L\u00e9a Seydoux, and Ry\u00fbsuke Hamaguchi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Loving modern cinema and admiring Tony Leung are essentially a one-to-one deal. One can look no further than Film at Lincoln Center\u2019s recent retrospective of the actor: whether the title was a programming coup or something that\u2019s played so often as to suggest every last New Yorker has seen it, the film starred Leung, and for that its tickets in the 268-seat Walter Reade proved almost impossible to acquire. This series came on the occasion of Ildik\u00f3 Enyedi\u2019s Silent Friend<\/a>, which offers (taking into account dozens upon dozens of films) one of Leung\u2019s quietest performances and, in his appreciably older appearance, a stark reminder that this actor has put decades of his life on the screen.<\/p>\n

Having spent more time watching Leung than almost any actor, I know my fortune to have time with the man on his first visit to New York since The Grandmaster\u2019s release in 2013. He speaks quietly and kindly, his expression moving from heavy contemplation to mirthful at a moment\u2019s notice. (I imagine these are attributes for acting that cannot be taught.) For a man of such stature, Leung is almost comically lacking in pretension\u2014a dark Adidas tracksuit underscored the relaxation\u2014and compels a conversation shirked of burden.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re coming at the end of Film at Lincoln Center\u2019s retrospective. You started acting young, and we can watch you from a man in his early 20s to today. In Silent Friend, it was sort of amazing to see you\u2014even if it\u2019s with a hair and make-up team\u2014looking and sounding your 60 years. Your filmography is this history of your face, your body, your voice as it\u2019s changed over decades.<\/p>\n

Tony Leung: I didn\u2019t do it by intention. [Laughs] I\u2019m just very lucky: I started my career at a golden age of Hong Kong cinema. So I have a chance to work with a different crew, different directors, and have the chance to try different kinds of movies. But I don\u2019t do it by intention. I never planned what I want to do next.<\/p>\n

Without planning, you\u2019ve had this amazing career\u2014not just the films, but the people you\u2019ve acted with. To name just the obvious: Maggie Cheung, Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun-fat, the Five Tiger Generals. In this film, it\u2019s L\u00e9a Seydoux. Your characters can spend so much time alone in silence, but you\u2019re also a very generous actor with your co-stars. What do you look for in a scene partner? What do you think actor co-stars bring out of you as an actor?<\/p>\n

Pretty much depends on what kind of partner you have. If we know each other well and we have trust in each other, we can improvise and we can try something different in every scene. But that very much depends on what partner and how you build up your relationship with your partner; I think that\u2019s very important. Just like when Leslie and I worked in Buenos Aires. We spent a lot of time hanging out together, we learned tango together, we learned Spanish together, we had dinner together\u2014trying to figure out that special kind of relationship\u2014and then, during that process, we built up trust and friendship that can be similar to the one in the movie [Happy Together].<\/p>\n

Or me with Maggie: you need to love your actress [Laughs] in order to have that kind of truthfulness in your expression.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t fake it.<\/p>\n

Yeah, you cannot fake it. Because people can feel\u2014audiences know you like her or not. [Laughs] You cannot fake. So this is how I work with my partner. But yeah: after the movie you have to tell yourself, \u201cThis is just a movie.\u201d Need to go back to your private life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Well, with L\u00e9a Seydoux in this film, you\u2019re always communicating through the computer. So what kind of preparation did you do?<\/p>\n

I met her in the Venice Film Festival first. And I find her very charismatic. She is a great actor. But when we do the shooting, we have, like, one or two dinners in Marbach in Germany before shooting. And during shooting, actually, we are on the same floor\u2014we are doing it real-time, just in different rooms\u2014so we rehearsed together with the director. Because our relationship is not that close, so it\u2019s less difficult to work on, and because I only noticed her on TED Talk and I just tried to ask her to help me to work on\u2026 that kind of relationship is very shallow.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need to do too much on it. And when we rehearse and when the director hears our dialogue and thinks it\u2019s okay, then we go back to our room and shoot it. I think that\u2019s easier. You don\u2019t need to spend so much time to communicate with L\u00e9a because we are foreigners to each other.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve done romance, you\u2019ve done comedy, you\u2019ve done action. I think people sometimes forget that you\u2019ve done some very dark material, like Cyclo or The Longest Nite\u2026<\/p>\n

Lust, Caution.<\/p>\n

\u2026Bullet in the Head. Even the original ending of In the Mood for Love was very upsetting. Silent Friend is a gentler film, very quiet. Do you have different comfort levels between playing extremely dark material, playing gentle material? Or is at all just acting?<\/p>\n

I like to try different kinds of films or characters. Because you never know if you don\u2019t try; you never know if you like it or not, or how far you can go. Yeah, so that\u2019s why I have those extreme characters: I\u2019m trying to explore myself through doing that character.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve said that the films can stay with you for a long time after you finish them.<\/p>\n

Yes.<\/p>\n

Some of the films, I feel battered after watching them. I can\u2019t imagine what it\u2019s like to make them.<\/p>\n

I think I\u2019m still in the character of Silent Friend.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably a good place to be. Better place than Cyclo.<\/p>\n

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. But what I can do is just\u2026 I don\u2019t hang out with people in the entertainment industry besides work. I go back to my private life and live like what I used to be and let time pass. That\u2019s my way to get out from that character.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Silent Friend is your first European production?<\/p>\n

Mmm-hmm.<\/p>\n

What accounts for the choices you make to work outside of Hong Kong? Is it just a fondness for their films?<\/p>\n

I have no intention to work with them. It\u2019s just: maybe that\u2019s my destiny. I never plan; I let things happen. Things just come up naturally. And if I think it\u2019s interesting, then I would take it. So everything is by chance; it\u2019s not by intention.<\/p>\n

I wonder if there are particular films or countries that you still feel like you haven\u2019t got to, that you have an ambition for?<\/p>\n

Expectations always\u2026 [Laughs] I don\u2019t expect, but I really want to do a Japanese film. Because I\u2019ve watched a lot of classic Japanese films, and I really love it. I once had a chance to work with a Japanese director, but somehow it didn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n

Kiyoshi Kurosawa?<\/p>\n

Yeah. I really want to do one.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s basically my favorite director, so I hope it can still happen.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Yeah, I really want to do it. Especially some new directors. Have you seen the movie called Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy?<\/p>\n

Hamaguchi.<\/p>\n

Ah, I love it.<\/p>\n

Yeah, me too.<\/p>\n

Wow, it\u2019s so\u2026 it\u2019s not like a script. It\u2019s like your everyday dialogue. I met him at an Asian film festival. I said, \u201cWow, if I have a chance I want to work with you.\u201d And I even asked him to show me all of his old movies, the black-and-white that he never released before. Wow, so interesting. I love him.<\/p>\n

I know that you and Johnnie To<\/a> were hoping to make a film in Japan.<\/p>\n

Yes, we have a plan to do a project together after so many years. Because I met Johnnie To when I first started my acting career in television. So I\u2019ve known him for a long time, and we plan to do a new project. We planned it in Hokkaido, but: doesn\u2019t work. We cannot get the license for the firearms. So we are now planning to do it in some place else. Because that story can happen everywhere, not just Japan. So yeah: we have a plan to work together, I hope, next year, because I still have two more projects. I have to finish that before working with Johnnie.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if you and Wong have any ambitions to work together again.<\/p>\n

Mmm\u2026 who knows? I don\u2019t know. Who knows? If there\u2019s a chance, why not?<\/p>\n

Silent Friend enters a limited release on Friday, May 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Loving modern cinema and admiring Tony Leung are essentially a one-to-one deal. One can look no further than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":["post-655096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}