There was one very special scene at the end of the film. My character, Zhao Di, has been sick. She wakes up and her mother tells her that the man she loves has come back from the city and had spent the day by her bedside.

I wanted to become a kindergarten teacher like my mother.

Ordinarily if an actor gets chosen for the lead in a film, he or she has already built up a repertoire, and everyone knows what he or she is capable of.

There are films you see that only reach your eyes. Then there are films that you can watch... that reach down to your throat, or reach your heart. "In the Mood for Love," though, reached all the way to my belly.

Even though I've done Hollywood films, I still don't think of myself as a Hollywood actress.

It's not that I wanted to be an actor; it's that I didn't want to be a dancer! I was trained in traditional Chinese dance, and after working so hard it seemed unfair to just disappear into a group.

In China, we don't consider someone truly beautiful until we have known them for a long time, and we know what's underneath the skin.