Most people spend their whole lives looking for the right job. There are others who never get an opportunity to do work that fulfils them.

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.

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 enjoy being an actress a lot, because I can feel different women's lives. I have the chance to feel like a geisha one day, and on another day maybe a scientist. That's the interesting part for me. My profession has helped me to grow up.

I wanted to escape so badly. But of course I knew I couldn't just give up and leave school. It was only when I heard my mom's voice that I came out of my hiding place.

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.

I wanted to become a kindergarten teacher like my mother.