November 18, 2005

While recently at the Waldorf  Towers in NYC to promote her latest film, "Memoirs of the Geisha", Chinese actress Gong Li talked about two of her upcoming films, "Miami Vice" and "Young Hannibal" and how she will deal with the language barrier.

Gong Li: In "Miami Vice", I play the head of a drug cartel and there are some technical terms in the drug trade that I had to learn very carefully. But the director (Michael Mann) has me playing a Cuban Chinese and so in addition to that I had to express the lines with a Cuban accent.

How did you manage to do that?

GL: I had a Cuban teacher and he has a very strong Cuban accent in English.

What about your role in "Young Hannibal"?

GL: In "Young Hannibal", I play yet another bad woman. In this case, her role (Lady Murasaki) is to introduce Hannibal to a certain kind of world and so she has a strong influence on his later development after we see him in the other films as he grows into an adult. It's through this kind of relationship and a wee bit of romance even that she has a strong impact on the shaping of his personality; and in this case as far as the English goes, I'm speaking with an English accent. I had an British English teacher on this film.