What was important for her was to be able to express or decline her love, and to have her own love. And, of course, being a geisha it’s impossible to do that. You look, for example, at the relationship between a geisha and the main client. She doesn’t have one at all. She doesn’t really need one. What she really wants and what she really needs is to have her own love and she doesn’t have that either, which is why she comes to such a pitiful ending. But I think after you watch the film, you may not think she’s such a bad person after all.”
Gong Li on Why it Took Her So Long to Make a Film in Hollywood: “The important things are the script and the director. I have been waiting around to get the right script and the right director. For example, in the past if a Hollywood director came to me with a script and wanted me to play a character and she was a stereotypical Asian woman who gets into a fight and gets killed off quickly, that didn’t seem to have much interest for me. I decided to wait until I found the right script and wait and wait until Rob Marshall came to me with this particular script. And it’s a very good director making a film that really has a genuine kind of Asian topic and a great character. So what really sold me on it was the character.
Hatsumomo is a really great character and a very big challenge for me. I thought when I accept the script, I really want to make sure I do a very good job with Hatsumomo, because she’s a very, very, great character and a big challenge for me. That’s the most important thing for me. That’s really the main criterion I was waiting for.”
Gong Li had a Hard Time Leaving “Memoirs of a Geisha” Behind: “This is true. The last day that we filmed after it was over… It was basically over, my part was finished, but I didn’t know where to go or to turn to. I sort of felt lost and this was really the kind of feeling Hatsumomo has at that moment when she has to leave. Because, of course, I’d spent about five months on the set working with all these people, getting into character and so on, that by the time it was over, everybody said, ‘O.K., today we are finished with Gong Li’s part and now we can applaud for her and say goodbye to her.’ And I didn’t really know what to do or where to go. It was a very strange kind of feeling being lost, just like Hatsumomo.”
Like Her Characters in “Ju Dou” and “Raise the Red Lantern,” Hatsumomo in “Memoirs of a Geisha” has to Accept the Limitations of Society: “The important thing for me when I look at characters is to consider the kind of constraints placed upon them. Now, me personally, I don’t like to have a lot of constraints placed upon me. When you look at a script, of course, you look at a character and sometimes the character has to face situations that are very different from what you would like to face, or how you would like to react. And so sometimes a director says to you, ‘You have to be in this way’ or ‘This character has to face a certain kind of constraints’ and I don’t like that. I don’t like having other people telling me what to do.
But, in fact, there are all kinds of constraints I do place upon myself internally. It’s through these kinds of things that I develop a kind of resistance, a kind of inner force that is struggling to break free can be expressed. I think directors look at me and go, ‘Oh, Gong Li, she’s very good at expressing that kind of character and that kind of motivation through facing those kind of constraints with a kind of inner-strength.’
Making this film, ‘Geisha,’ and working with this character I really learned a lot. It taught me a lot that sometimes you can do this and sometimes you can do that, especially the parts where you really can not do this or that. And that really taught me a lot.”
Gong Li’s Perception of Beauty: “For me the beauty of a person is a matter of the whole package. You have to look at the whole thing, not just a matter of outward appearance or whatever. It has to do with one’s character, personality, upbringing and so on. So, for example, with a geisha, a geisha is not really just a beautiful face either. A geisha is really a sort of artist and it is through long training and discipline and struggle that a geisha becomes this beautiful person. It’s really the whole package.”
