Tang Wei is no Barbie
The Chinese actress from Ang Lee's 'Lust, Caution' finds her own level
Tang Wei is one of the few young Chinese actresses who manage to be popular and yet keep a low profile. She’s a household name, largely thanks to her 2007 big screen debut in Ang Lee’s controversial “Lust, Caution”. But while the Golden Lion-winning film brought the then-28-year-old fame, she didn’t bask in the glow.
The movie’s nude scenes and the political issues raised instead led her to fade from the spotlight for a year. The Central Academy of Drama graduate went to London to hone her acting skills further. She took two theatre courses, auditioned for several plays and got a role in Shakespeare’s “Henry V”.
On her return to China. Wei acted in five films, but seldom promoted them. She has no blog or obvious Web presence, yet her every move is watched. Video clips of her English speech at an awards ceremony in South Korea and her English interview promoting the 2011 martial-arts movie “Wu Xia” in Cannes were widely viewed online.
Passers-by grab snapshots of the star in bookstores, restaurants and at the theatre and post them on the Internet. While her fans praise her mystery and grace, the critics say she is just a product of successful “hunger marketing”.
“Stars are like Barbie dolls,” the 34-year-old says, dressed casually in a silk shirt and blue slim jeans but complaining about her 10-centimetre high heels. “I still can’t get used to them.”
“People make up their perceptions of a star, just like they put makeup on a Barbie. The ‘star’ Tang Wei,” she smiles, pointing to the ceiling, “is there. She has nothing to do with the real me.”
She attributes her ability to master dialects and languages like Cantonese in “Lust, Caution”, and English in “Late Autumn” to her “shamelessness”. She insists her English used to embarrass her. At a press conference in New York for “Lust, Caution”, forgot the word for “building”. People laughed, but she said the mistake only helped her remember the word.
She claims she’s not smart, nor good at acting or painting (which she learned from her painter father). And her rise through the acting ranks is just the result of working hard, in what she describes as a “dumb way”.
In her latest picture, “Finding Mr Right”, she plays a Chinese woman who travels to Seattle to deliver her baby, whose father is the rich husband of some other woman. Wei filled a bag with rice and carried it around all day to get an idea of what it was like to be pregnant.
“I’m not one of those gifted actors, so I try to live the character’s life as best I can, hoping the physical practice brings mental change.” When playing a farmer’s wife in Peter Chan’s “Wu Xia”, aka “Dragon”, the eighth-best movie of 2012 according to Time magazine, she made sure there was mud under her nails.
Wei is an avid learner. She improved her Cantonese when making “Crossing Hennessey”, a small-budget romance set in Hong Kong’s narrow streets. She learned tai chi for her role in “Speed Angels”, and some Korean when making “Late Autumn”, in which her character falls in love with a Korean con man. The last film helped her become the first foreigner to win “best actress” at the PaekSang Arts Awards in South Korea.
She once said in an interview that she is so curious she would willingly go to the South Pole to learn from the penguins.
Even so, her favourite place is still China, where she can speak Mandarin, take public transport and be among friends. She also likes looking for good, small, out-of-the-way eateries.
If discovered by a fan, she says, “I just change direction and keep on eating.”
