The atmosphere at my school was very competitive. Young girls were competing with each other every day for status, for leadership, for the affection of the teachers. I hated it.

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.

Zhang Yimou is always going to need young, pretty girls for his films. But I don't really concern myself with what Zhang Yimou's next starlet looks like.

There are actors who spend 20 years working and still don't achieve what I've achieved so quickly. So I think my only course of action is to work as hard as I can, not just for the sake of the film, but also to prove to these people that I do have talent.

Wanting to be in a Western film won't get me very far. Unless the opportunity arose, it doesn't matter how much I want to be in one. But if an opportunity did arise, no actor would pass it up.

I was really interested in geishas' work, and wanted to meet real geishas.

Absolutely not, because in acting I've found a domain that suits me perfectly. And that is so utterly rare.