Tony Leung Chiu-wai told a packed audience at the Shanghai International Film Festival that his restrained performance style needed to feel like a complete cinematic experience during a masterclass following the screening of his film “Silent Friend.”
“Sometimes it might just be something on my finger. You have to look very carefully, and it has to be in the movie,” Leon said.
The actor, who is president of the jury for the festival’s Golden Goblet competition, spoke at length about his collaboration with Hungarian writer and director Ildiko Enedi on “Silent Friend,” which follows the relationship between three generations of scholars and a ginkgo tree that is more than 200 years old. Leon admitted that he was not immediately drawn into the script.
“Actually, after I read the script she sent me, I wasn’t really interested,” he said. “The script was a three-chapter story, but I had no idea what it would be like as a movie.Also, before I started learning more about plants, it was just the background of plants, humans, and animals for me.”
What changed his mind was a video call after watching Anyedi’s previous films, On My Body and Soul and The Story of My Wife. Leung said he trusts intuition over analysis when evaluating potential collaborators.
“I always feel the person I meet instead of using my brain to analyze them, because that’s how you calculate,” he said. “I liked her. I trusted my instincts.”
Enyedi wrote the role of Professor Tony Wong specifically with Leon in mind, adjusting the central tree from another species to a ginkgo to suit him. Leon explained the choice.
“She said the original tree was a different species, I forget the name, but they mate with the help of bats,” he said. “This film is about loneliness. Trees share information only with people of their own kind, but not with outsiders. My character is from the East, and so is the ginkgo tree. In an old garden in Germany, the ginkgo is also lonely.”
To make a living as a neuroscientist, Leon spent six months reading books about plants and neurobiology and visiting laboratories to observe experiments firsthand. Around the third or fourth month, he said, the scientist’s mindset took hold without any conscious effort. He explained that thorough preparation was a condition of freedom on set, noting that the more prepared he was, the more filming felt like play rather than obligation.
“Otherwise,[shooting]becomes a stressful burden and not fun at all,” he said.
Leung favorably compared the atmosphere of Silent Friend, a smaller production, to Tran Anh Yun’s Cyclo, which was made with a similarly tight-knit crew and room for improvisation, rather than the scale of Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Speaking about Enyedi’s work style, he said: “She left a wonderful space for not only me but the entire staff to work freely. She never told me how to act or where to stand.”
Leon divided his career into three stages. Television came first. An early turning point was when he met director Hou Hsiao-hsien and was impressed by the naturalism of the non-professional actors in “City of Sorrow.” A 20-year collaboration with Wong Kar-wai then formed the basis of his style. He spoke candidly about how that long partnership complicated subsequent work.
“At the beginning of ‘Last Caution,’ the costumes and hairstyles made me feel like I was on the set of ‘In the Mood for Love,'” he said. “So, I felt that something was wrong, so I asked Ang Lee to give me a hint (to change my posture).”
He added, with characteristic humor, that if he continued acting until he was 90 years old, and the play continued for 30 years, he would already be on his last stage. He pointed out that different directors employ completely different ways of working. While some directors impose a precise vision, others allow freedom but require strict preparation, Wong Kar-wai operated experimentally, shooting a scene many times.
Regarding talent and its development, Leung spoke after an audience member holding up a poster for Infernal Affairs quoted Andy Lau’s review of how good actors are even in weak films. Leon rejected the concept of innate, effortless ability.
“Even if you have talent (in acting), you need to develop it, so you have to work hard,” he said. “Loving what you do is a good start for talent. The important thing is to keep developing it.”
He recalled that he felt a fascination with acting soon after he started. “I was completely immersed in it. I didn’t want to stop at all,” he said.
When asked if he wanted to surpass his past works, Leon gave a philosophical answer. “Too high expectations usually lead to disappointment,” he says. “It’s better to surprise myself. If something interesting happens, I just do it.”
He said he was positive about the narrowing of roles that come with age. “It’s something that happens naturally, so there’s nothing I can do about it.” Regarding the role of a father in particular, he quipped, “There’s no need to rush. There will be more fathers in the future, and I don’t have many options left.”
Leon said his performance approach has shifted over the years to conveying emotion through minimal physical detail rather than overt expressions. This is a mode that is fully reflected only on large screens. He said he hates looking back on his work, but now he can absorb failures painlessly.
When hypothesized that audiences would choose between a flawed but distinctive film and a sophisticated but unremarkable film, Leon said that either was fine, arguing that the film’s goal was not sophistication, but honesty in acting and directorial expression.
Leon spoke candidly about why he didn’t pursue theater, even though his wife, actress Carina Lau, is currently working in stage productions. “I don’t have enough courage,” he said. “The stage and the studio are different. I still get nervous performing in front of a lot of people, so I want to get over that before I can do it again.”
Leon concluded with a reminiscence about risk and growth, noting that when he was younger he feared failure and only recently started venturing beyond his comfort zone, a change he attributed to maturity.
