An Epic Talent : Gong Li, Who Brings an Easygoing Style to a Range of Demanding Roles, Has the World on a String as China’s Most Renowned Actress

Gong Li makes the point emphatically when asked the question on many movie lovers’ minds: Would her remarkable collaboration with director Zhang Yimou, which has spanned seven films, continue despite the breakup of their romance?

“Yes! And not just one picture. We’re discussing two more pictures right now, but it’s too early to talk about them.”

Beginning with the ravishingly gorgeous rural drama “Red Sorghum” (1988), Gong and Zhang, whose current release is “Shanghai Triad,” have had a professional partnership that has established her as China’s most internationally renowned film star and Zhang as a world-class filmmaker.

Her films--and Gong has been photographed by some of the best cinematographers working--fail to prepare you for the impact of her beauty in person. She recalls Audrey Hepburn in her combination of class and charm.

Gong, who speaks the Mandarin dialect, has taken a crash course in English, but relies upon her publicist, Norman Wang, to serve as her translator during an interview in her Sunset Strip hotel. In town briefly for the Golden Globe Awards, she had just bought a pair of handsome but comfortable black shoes at the Beverly Center to replace the spike heels she had brought with her.

Gong, who turned 30 on Dec. 31, above all doesn’t want to be thought of as a workaholic. This is understandable on her part, because Zhang--and Chen Kaige, who directed her in “Farewell, My Concubine” and the upcoming “Temptress Moon”--have consistently given her the kind of big, grueling roles in epics that most actresses rarely find once in a lifetime, and would surely seem to demand lots of hard work and concentration.

When Gong says, however, “I don’t think I’m a very hard-working actress,” she means that she’s blessed with being a quick study and that she arrives on the set fully prepared. “That way I can laugh and joke and be spontaneous. I think I’m quite suited to being an actress because acting is something that’s flexible, not rigid.”

Gong has played sturdy peasants, a sympathetic adulteress, an ill-fated concubine, a woman married to an actor inextricably involved in a complex relationship with another actor, a wife and mother who endures the horrors of the Cultural Revolution and, in “Shanghai Triad,” a ‘30s gangster’s mistress, a flashy nightclub singer of minor talent whose hard, cruel surface hides a vulnerable, caring woman of great courage. In Kaige’s “Temptress Moon,” also set in the ‘30s and now in post-production and slated for Cannes, Gong plays a woman in love with two men.

She said that the way she prepared for “Shanghai Triad” is typical of all her films with Zhang and also with Kaige, who works in a similar fashion. “The film was based on a novel called ‘Mafia Society,’ and Zhang Yimou adapted it,” she said. “It was very difficult for him to re-create that era, especially with the musical numbers. We looked at lots of Chinese films and French films and thousands of old photographs. The songs I sing are actually all old songs from the time, and they were chosen to tie in with the psychological states of the characters.”

(Interestingly, Zhang, in making period pictures, never wants his actors to meet with survivors of those eras but to draw upon their own imaginations in bringing their roles alive.)

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Because the Chinese film industry is government-sponsored, directors are not under heavy pressure to work against deadlines. But there are trade-offs, of course, and Zhang has often been at the center of controversy--and often for reasons that seem perplexing to Westerners. It’s hard to understand why “Shanghai Triad” was passed over as China’s official Oscar entry--a subject Gong said was pretty complicated and hard to explain--but one insider has suggested that Chinese officials simply wanted to submit a film that was more representative of China today. Yet the film chosen is Ye Ying’s “Red Cherries,” about two girls sent to a school outside Moscow during World War II.

“I’m always thinking about my part, even when I’m joking around on the set,” she said. “All good actors need good directors to guide them to discover their special qualities, and I spend a great deal of time discussing my roles with my directors and researching them. For ‘The Story of Qiu Jiu’ I spent two months living in a village to learn the life of a peasant and to pick up the dialect.

“Both Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige are very relaxed and know exactly what they want, and they’re able to communicate in such a way that I have an easy grasp of the character I’m playing. I give my opinion of the role, right or wrong, to start the discussion, and then I give several interpretations of the part so as to give the director choices. The two biggest difficulties an actor can have is to have a director who doesn’t know what he wants and to be in a scene with an actor who gives you no challenges.”

Gong said that although “once in a while it’s OK to make a commercial movie in Hong Kong”--she has made several--she admitted she didn’t like any of them. She tries to see important foreign films, mainly available on tape, and was especially impressed with “The Piano.” “I loved the directing and acting,” she said.

“I’m very careful as to what I choose so that I don’t repeat myself. I study the script once in its entirety so I can decide whether it’s suitable for me or not,” she said, adding that she turned down the opportunity to play Robert De Niro’s girlfriend in “Heat” because she would have had to commit to the film without reading a script. She said she would consider future roles in American films if the scripts were right.

“For me, the second most important thing is the makeup test. Then I will know whether or not the role will work for me.”

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Born in Shenyang the daughter of university economics professors, Gong did not grow up with dreams of being a movie star, and her parents were less than thrilled when she took up acting, as it was not in the family tradition.

“When I was going to school I had no idea of what I wanted to do,” she said. “I was good in singing but did not get into the university for vocal work. Once I made it into the university to study acting, I realized it was not too bad a thing for me. I found the work very challenging and suitable.”

Gong was in her second year at the Central Academy of Drama when Zhang came on a talent search for the star of “Red Sorghum.” “I happened not to be on hand when he arrived as I was working in a TV drama and almost missed my chance to audition for him,” she said. “I went to it not really caring whether or not I got the part.”

Even though Gong landed the role in a boldly stylized film that would be crucial in establishing the contemporary Chinese cinema the world over, she next accepted a small part in “The Empress Dowager,” directed by the respected veteran Lihan Xiang. But it was the encouraging Lihan’s words to Gong Li that proved prophetic: “You will become an international star.”