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INTERVIEW: Aidan Quinn, Liu Ye & Chen Shi-Zheng
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The dynamic of Chinese students at American universities is an interesting one. I recently attended a press event for the film Dark Matter, a film that heavily deals with this situation, I learned about how much of a complex relationship that can be. Upon speaking to the director Chen Shi-Zheng and stars of the film, Aidan Quinn and Asian actor Liu Ye, I learned the complications that can arise because of the clashing of cultures as well as the language barrier. The film and the filmmakers informed me how, because of these slight differences, a person can feel secluded and frustrated to the point that it can lead to extreme violence. It gave me a little insight as to why things like the Virginia Tech incident might have occurred.
Please enjoy this roundtable interview I had with the filmmakers and cast shining some light on this issue as well the process of making the film and even a little insight into the dynamics of Hollywood and independent film.
-Adam Rettek
Staff Writer
Liu Ye & Chen Shi-Zheng
QUESTION: This was your first English speaking role. What were some of the challenges you faced in that?
Liu Ye (LY): I try to speak English for you. I started as an actor in Chinese at that time. It's a dream for me. I think I was acting more like a little fan working with Meryl Streep.
Q: And what were your challenges doing an English speaking role?
LY: As you can see, my English is not good. But for this movie, I must speak English. So difficult. So different.. It was a little bit difficult understanding what was going on the set. Fortunately I had some experience working and pronouncing and speaking English.
Q: Had you read anything as far as physics? What was your education? Had you spent any time in the U.S.?
LY: This was the first time I came to America, for this movie. So in high school I had to study a little bit of physics but in college I moved to theater and my parents wanted me to go into a science related field because my sisters studied law in college, but I'm not too good with academics.
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Q: Director Chen comes from an opera background and the scenes are very theatrical and some of the scenes in this movie are very theatrical. Did you have a background in anything like that?
LY: The theater is not foreign to me, because hopefully you guys will visit a huge new dome in Beijing, an opera dome, and I performed there for 10 days prior to coming here to shoot the film so I was really familiar with the whole process.
Q: What was your experience like at Sundance?
LY: Sundance lacked the pretentiousness and I'd heard of it before so I was really excited to go. I think for an actor, that was the best kind of award an actor can receive, having an immediate reaction. What I liked about it was the folks who went to Sundance were folks who truly loved film. They cried, they happy, they interacted with the audience. They interacted with everyone. The critics that were there were also just trying to enjoy film and left the pretentiousness at the door.
Q: Chen, this is your first feature film after doing opera. What are the differences between those theatrical spheres?
Chen Shi-Zheng (CZ): It's the same, it's just trying to get people to give you money to do your work [laughs]. And you need to attach mega stars. I had Aidan Quinn…to convince producers, invest their money. Some difference I think in the opera world nobody talks over your shoulder. The producer..my editor told me….[unintelligible] they have an opinion of everything you do. It's the same, I work in theater, I work with actors.
Q: How did you meet Janet Ye?
CZ: A few years ago I did a production in Disney in LA and Janet came to see it. So that's how I met her. Later on we had a few finances come through and some didn't come through. Janet finally did convince American Sterling company but there was a man who was very interested in China and very interested in this very story to finance the picture.
Q: How did you get the stars you have attached to this movie like Meryl Streep?
CZ: By adoring them. When her manager got the script through the producer, she read the story and committed from the first reading. She decided she was behind the project; she basically helped, if I liked any actor, she would call to arrange a meeting. She was amazing, she was an energy behind this project. Liu Ye, I'd seen his films in China. I was a huge fan I thought he was the best of this generation of Chinese actors. Very professional. He faked his way through the audition doing English even though he didn't really speak English. When I met him in Beijing he spoke a little English, he said, “I can do it! My English is good!” [laughs] The only problem is when Meryl improvised he gets into a panic and says wait, wait, I don't know what she's saying!
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Q: You're a very visual opera director. How did you take your visual techniques and translate that into the film world?
CZ: It could've been a really dull campus. A movie can't be just boring. It's a dormitory and a schoolroom, there's really nowhere to go. So I was really trying to find scientifically the universe and picture how to depict that through coffee cups and through things through elements and color and combinations.
Q: In light of Virginia Tech shootings, which I know held the film back, were you asked to edit the film in any way?
CZ: I was just very sad. People tend to make this generalization, one shooting means you are in the category, but each event, each individual is different. I was very much disturbed and haunted by the events at the Iowa University. That was the origin that started this. So to me in the film it's about disillusion, it's about an ideal.
Q: There's an article on a blog by an Asian writer that supported the shooter at Virgina Tech and was very racist towards the non-Asian community. Were you worried about a backlash at all?
CZ: No I wasn't. The victims' family actually sent condolences to the Chinese student’s family saying we are so sorry for THEIR loss. And I thought it was humane and I wanted it to present this kind of generous thought, generous reflection.
Q: That was one of your intentions?
CZ: Yes. Miscommunication, assumption, is a dangerous thing. Evidently now so much about Chinese has become next threat to Americans which is just absurd. This is something I'm quite worried about. It's a nightmare of a generalization about another race, another country which is something we shouldn't be doing.
Q: Did you hear a lot of stories when you were in China about a lot of students who went overseas and this type of heartache happens to them?
CZ: There are a lot of stories and I think we bring in our own experience into the stories, and filmmaking is art, but as the audience we bring in our own experiences so that shifts the overall story as well.
Q: Can we ask about future projects and Monkey?
LY: I'm really working on serious projects with the same kind of gravity in terms of topic. Right now I'm filming a historical film based on WWII Nanking. We really want to work on a film that will bring Chinese cinema to an international arena similar to Schindler's List.
CZ: I just made this rock n roll gorillas opera and it's coming to the Spirit festival and London and I'm adapting the story trying to make a trilogy of films.
Q: Will it come to New York?
CZ: Next year.
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Aidan Quinn
Q: You’re really busy lately with your stage play going on now so I was wondering: Which do you prefer, theater or film? Do you need to balance the two or do a little bit of one then the other?
Aidan Quinn (AQ): It’s nice too do it all. It’s definitely nice to do it all. Of course there’s nothing more satisfying then doing stage, when the planets line up, but I love doing it all. You can do work in film that you can’t do in theater.
Q: What brought you to this project?
AQ: Meryl Streep [Laughs] No I’ll tell you the story. I got a call on Wednesday, my manager said, “There’s a film, it’s already filming, it’s in Salt Lake City, one of the supporting lead actors is doing another movie and it ran over, he can’t do it, they’re desperate. You would get on a plane tomorrow and you’d be shooting on Friday.” This was Wednesday. “There’s no money, and its low budget scale” and I said to tell them to go flying leap at themselves [Laughs] and then she said, “I forgot to tell you one other detail: your costar is Meryl Streep and she asked for you.” I said, “When is the next plane?” [Laughs] I didn’t know what it was about or anything. They were e-mailing me the script that afternoon. So then I read the script and of course really liked it, what it was about and everything, so I got on that plane the next day.
Q: Was there anything that surprised you when you got to finally work with her?
AQ: I had worked with her before, that’s why she asked for me. We had done a movie, Music of Chance or what ever they changed the title too.
Q: Music of the Heart.
AQ: Yeah that’s right [Laughs] See I don’t remember, seemed like it was ten years ago. You’re always surprised working with Meryl cause she’s so fresh and so surprising in all her choices, and so alive. It’s always good working with her in that way. But Liu Ye! What a joy to work with him too, he was phenomenal. My first scenes, getting off the plane, were with Liu Ye, he’s a phenomenal actor.
Q: Did you read much about physics for the part?
AQ: I read as much as I could in two days [Laughs] on the internet, on wikipedia, and going to the Library. I crammed it all and read it all on the plane. I was an expert after two days. [Laughs] It was all I needed.
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Q: How did you read the part of Reiser? Did you read him as a real jealous bastard?
AQ: No, I read him as a human being who was in a position of power and liked having his ego stroked, like most people. My father’s an academic, I’ve been around academics, but without a doubt Lui Ye publishing a paper criticizing my great theory… [Laughs] not a smart move
Q: Since you grew up around the academic community do you think it’s particularly endemic to the academic community to have these levels of jealousy?
AQ: No I don’t think its endeming; I think it’s very human. I think it’s in all fields but I do think there is something in the academic world, because there is that little sense of, well, you’re not quite doing full time what you dreamed to be doing. Although there are teachers, I’ve met them through my father, that is what they dreamed to do and that is what they are born to do and that is what they should be doing and god bless them. Obviously, they’re the most undervalued profession, well one of the most undervalued professions, in the world. I would say prostitution is first, but anyway… [Laughs] That was a joke, That was a joke. That was not serious.
Q: How was it working with Chen, a first time director? Throughout your career you’ve seemed to have worked with a lot of first time directors: What’s the appeal with that?
AQ: They’re the only ones who will hire me. [Laughs] They don’t care when the studio executives say “He’s not box office enough.” [Laughs] There is an element of truth to that, you know, all jokes have an element of truth to them, but he was wonderful. He obviously had a very strong visual sense from his work in the opera and a beautiful sense of drama. I can’t wait to see this film with a significant Chinese audience because I understand there’s a lot more humor than we know about in it, within the Chinese characters. He was lovely; you can tell from meeting him, he had a great personality, very supportive, and very intense in all the right ways.
Q: What is the best lesson you have learned since you’ve been an actor?
AQ: Well if you’re looking for great teachers and great lessons in acting, look no further then Meryl Streep. There’s a classic example right there. She is like a witch, in the best possible way. The way she can conjure up, in just a relaxed way and an improvisational way, authentic life into whatever character she’s playing or whatever project she’s evolved. You know how quick it took her to learn that Tai Chi? That’s amazing. One of my best friends has done Tai Chi for thirty years and he doesn’t look nearly as good as she did doing it Chi. She learned it in six weeks or something. She’s pretty extraordinary woman. She’s a good example of someone who’s balancing a family life with a career and balancing being an authentic person and not having to kowtow to a lot of the corporate needs that are in our business. Corporate needs are becoming more and more intense. I just did an interview at a news channel, which will remain nameless; [Laughs] where it seemed to be the requirement of every woman there to have sexy long legs and short skirts. I’m all for woman dressing sexually and as sexy as they want but it seemed to be the school uniform, if you will. We live in strange times, so if you can find a balance within these strange times it’s a good thing.
Q: Back to something you’ve touched on earlier, it seems today that careers don’t have to go out of date just because you’ve gotten older. We have someone like Gabriel Byrne with this huge hit now, In Treatment. Do you think things have change? Do you think there are opportunities for you to re-birth yourself in different ways?
AQ: Yeah there are certainly opportunities….I’ve only watched a few of them because I was doing a play but I think Gabriel is brilliant and the director in that show, In Treatment, is fantastic. It’s the best work I’ve seen Gabriel do on film. There are definitely opportunities like that but they are few and far between.
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Q: Do you think would want to do something on your own to create an opportunity? Like produce a play or a film?
AQ: I think that helps a lot. More and more you see actors doing that out of necessity. In fact it’s the one thing I always tell young actors if I ever speak to them. Do not think that you’re going to have a satisfying, enriching career to yourself if you’re just going to be a freelance actor. You’re going to have to generate your own work by producing, writing with friends, having a little company, because if you’re just waiting for the phone to ring from the corporate interest more than likely they’re not going to inline with your own interests. Unless you’re very, very lucky, unless you’re in the top ten box office stars and everything gets offered to you and then you can pick and choose some really good stuff, then that it’s always going to be a struggle, a dance.
Q: So you’re doing that now? You have your own production company?
AQ: No I don’t, but when I grow up I will. [laughs] I’m a young man and have young children, but I’m busy working. But I would like to, yeah.
Q: What was like working with Chinese actors and directors as opposed the Americans you usually work with? Were there any major differences?
AQ: Yes and No. Lei Yi’s English was not the best and my Chinese was slightly worse. My Chinese is non-existent, of course. [Laugh] I didn’t understand what they were saying so that helped. [Laughs] If they were laughing at me I didn’t know it, so that was good, and the translator didn’t tell me. [Laughs] Liu Ye has a tremendous talent, his ability to go from one emotion of complete wide eyed innocence and devotion to completely being devastated is almost like a kabuki Madea; his ability to do that in just seconds flat is just astonishing and wonderful to work with. So Liu Ye and I, even when we were gesturing, and we didn’t even understand a word we were saying, we had a good time. We were laughing all the time.
Q: Did the difference in languages help you guys out with your performance, considering your characters had such similar dynamics?
AQ: Maybe, but I don’t think it was that. I think that came from the script and the director and just our two personalities and the way they naturally melded.
Q: In your long filmography do you have any films that you consider a bench mark for you in terms of bring yourself to the next level or a different level?
AQ: Yeah, sure, if I thought about it. Certainly when I did things like For All My Sons, which was an Arthur Miller thing, at the Playhouse on PBS that was kind of a breakthrough part. An Early Frost, which was the first movie ever done about AIDS, where I played the first guy in movies or television to have aids. Playing Hamlet; as a theater actor, those things are always benchmarks.
Q: You mentioned earlier the humor on set with this very emotionally heavy film. What else do you do to keep yourself amused besides joking around with your costars? What kind of films, television shows, or music do you like? Also did you get turned on to anything from your Chinese co-stars?
AQ: Drinking. [laughs] It’s because usually the more serious a subject matter the more humorous a set can be sometimes. I think that’s particularly true when you have talented director, crew and actors that know how to do their work but realize it’s their work and it’s not life or death. There was a lot of laughter.
Q: lately what are some of your favorite movies or what music do you listen too?
AQ: I listen to a very wide variety of music, from classical to folk to modern.
Q: Speaking of working with woman in power, on a personal note, what was it like working with Madonna on Desperately Seeking Susan?
AQ: That was the most asked question of my career until about fifteen years ago! [laughs] I thought it had gone away but obviously it’s back. [Laughs] The truth about that question is that I never worked with her. My scenes are with Rosanna Arquette. That’s why it’s funny that that’s the most asked question of my career, [laughs] because it never happened. When I did meet her on the set she seemed very nice and fun and had a good sense of humor.
Q: You talked about Dark Matter dealing with cultural displacement and it’s relevance today. What did you think about when you were trying to deal with the idea of cultural displacement and has it been in other films you’ve done?
AQ: I think it is a theme in Avalon, which is a great film I was involved in. It was a Barry Levinson film about a Jewish family and it certainly happened in my family, we moved back and forth from Ireland. So I understand growing up with parents that feel not quite home there. It’s probably the reason I’m an actor because of moving back and forth and having to change your voice with different accents because you want to fit in. As a kid you don’t want to stand out as the American or as the Irish kid.
Q; Do you have any plans to publicity for this film in China?
AQ: Not that I’ve heard. I know when we were making the film there was hope that we can all go to China and publicize it and this film would get to China. I don’t know where that stands right now.
Q: Would you say you prefer doing independent films over the bigger productions that you’ve done?
AQ: Not necessarily. In general, the themes in a lot of the independent films are a little more varied a little more interesting, so yeah, in that way. But listen, I’ve done plenty of big budget movies that have great stories and it’s a nice feeling to actually get paid. [Laughs]
Q: What’s next?
AQ: I’m waiting for three independent films’ financing to become real. [Laughs] That’s true.
Q: Do you see a rise in independent films coming in the next few years? Especially with the rise of digital technology making it cheaper to make films. Do you see that providing a change were more films like that will override the studio?
AQ: I really hope so. The thing about that is it makes it so assessable but that also has a down side for us that are used to getting a certain amount of pay and this and that because every one can a make a movie and put it on YouTube and sixty million people see it. What do you need actors for, why do you need to pay them? So there’s all this new media and that’s what my union is going to battle with right now with the producers about trying to get a little piece of the new media. The new media is where the future is.
Q: Would you consider working with the new technology?
AQ: Oh yeah I’ve done it. Actors don’t care where they work. They’ll work in a pig sty. Just give them a good part, a little bit of food, and maybe a little wine at the end of the night! [Laughs]
Q: How about directing?
AQ: I would love too when I grow up. [Laughs]
Q: You’ve worked with three very powerful female actresses: Meryl Streep, Sissy Spacek, and Bonnie Hunt, I was wondering what the contrast was like working with these three strong female actors?
AQ: I loved working with Sissy. She was phenomenal. I worked with her twice, actually, and Meryl twice. I did a film called Nine Lives with Sissy a couple of years ago, which is directed by the guy who does In Treatment which you brought up. They both phenomenal and great fun to work with, just great ladies, just great human beings, both of them. Bonnie Hunt is so funny. She will have you almost being in your pants. [Laughs] She is just so damn funny. We had a lot of fun on the first Project Greenlight. Which was a bunch of…[laughs]. They were so upset that we all liked each other, because all they wanted was conflict. I’ll give you an example of how bad corporate media can become even in something like Project Greenlight. It was supposed to be so independent with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck but they never came to the set. I never saw them on the set, not once. Anyway, Kevin Pollak, the wonderful Jewish comedian actor, was playing the Rabbi. I’m playing the kind of slightly anti-Semitic Irish fireman. It’s raining and they’re saying, “Do you want an umbrella?” I said, “No, I’m from Chicago, I don’t want an umbrella. Chicago guys, we don’t do that.” [Laughs] Kevin said, “I’m a Jew get me three umbrellas.” [Laughs] Now he’s telling this story to the camera and I’m sitting right next to him laughing. You can actually see my arm shaking up and down as I’m laughing. Kevin then said, “Mr. Quinn, Mr. Method Actor, he likes the rain.” So they did it as if it was serious like he was complaining about me. They took out the sound of me laughing and putting my head in; just to make a little bit of conflict where there was none.
Q: Speaking of strong actresses, you have one at home.
AQ: Yes I do.
Q: What it’s like being in a two actor family?
AQ: My wife, god bless her, has had to sacrifice her career for our family and for our daughter; I have daughters but my particular daughter who is autistic. So she took few and far between jobs, the last one being The Sopranos which she was on the last year and a half, in which she had a great part and it was fun for her to do. Hopefully she’ll get to work more and more as my daughter gets older now.
Q: There have been a lot more films about autism now; do you think the attention is helping the problem?
AQ: Sure. The more attention the better. You’ve gone from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 100, so how’d that happen? How do you think? There has only been one thing that’s changed radically and that is the amount of toxins that are being injected into our children by vaccines. To me that’s what it is.
Q: Are there any actors or actress that you’ve haven’t been able to work with that you want to?
AQ: Yeah, there have been so many. I’ve been so fortunate to work with the number I have worked with. The great Irish actors I’ve gotten to work with, I’ve been so lucky. I can’t think of one off the top of my head but there have been a mess of them.
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