From beginning to end I worried that Ang Lee wouldn't be satisfied with my work. So I worked as hard as I could to earn his trust, because you only get a chance like this once.

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.

Chinese women are much more modest than American women when it comes to clothes. We tend to show less flesh.

Yes. Otherwise I could have done a lot of Hollywood movies. After Crouching Tiger I got a lot of offers, but I turned them down because they were all victim roles - poor girls sold to America to be a wife or whatever. I know I have the ability to go deeper, to take on more original roles than that.

I knew nothing about martial arts. And I don't really like it! But in the film, I not only had to pretend that I knew all about it, I had to be the best at it. That was very difficult.

There's nothing in Chinese culture that is an equivalent of the geisha. It's so different, so special to Japan.

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.