Now 38, Gong Li is back–and in a Wong Kar-wai double feature, no less. She has a potent role in “2046” as a Cambodian gambler and costars with Chang Chen in the Wong-directed episode of “Eros,” a three-part film about sex and love (Steven Soderbergh and Michelangelo Antonioni directed the two other sections), which Wong hopes will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September. In “2046” Gong Li is nearly unrecognizable, with her hair whipped into a gravity-defying beehive and her makeup as stark as an ace of hearts. But her powerfully restrained acting style is as mature and distinctive as ever. To prepare for her role as a gambler she disguised herself and hung out at the casinos in Macao, learning the art of the bluff. “She wanted to know exactly who this woman was,” Wong recalls. “She asked, ‘What is her motivation? What does she look like?’ Gong Li is very precise, and this makes her very powerful in front of the camera.”
She got there by chance. The youngest of five children, Gong Li enrolled as a teen at Beijing’s Central College of Drama against the wishes of her parents, economics professors who wanted her to go into teaching. Zhang discovered her during her second year there and cast her in “Red Sorghum” as a timid peasant who grows into a forceful woman when she takes control of her dead husband’s vineyard. The movie became an international art-house hit in 1987 and made Gong Li a star; still, she finished her studies. For eight years she was Zhang’s muse and lover, and she became a huge movie star at home and abroad. (Though most of her films were banned in China, her compatriots watched her on bootlegged videos.) Unlike most Chinese movie stars, she also maintained her independence, never signing with any studio.
Wong piqued her curiosity when he asked her to star in “Eros.” “I know all his films and always found him to be such an interesting director,” she says. It was a short job–five days of filming–and relatively painless. So when he came back and asked her to play a small role in “2046,” she said, “Yes, only for you.” That was a different experience altogether. The shoot lasted two months, though Gong Li was in front of the camera for only a week. “I had never worked without a script and thought it was dangerous, but I gave it a try,” she says. “Wong Kar-wai gets his inspiration directly from his actors. Because he trusts you so, you can open yourself totally to him and try as many things as possible. It gave me great confidence in myself, and it improved my patience. Now I can cope with any director in the world.” Hear that, Hollywood?
