Talking With Collin Chou

Interview by Fibe Ma and Katharine Schroeder 

Collin Chou has been in the movie business since the age of 12 and has acted in such blockbuster films as Fearless, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Matrix Reloaded, among many others. Collin plays the character of the Jade War Lord in Jackie's latest movie, The Forbidden Kingdom. We met with Collin at his hotel at Hengdian Studios recently and had a lovely talk with this charming, gracious, and humble man who is dedicated to improving himself both professionally and personally.

Would you like to give us a little introduction? Tell us a bit about yourself.

Collin: Okay. Hello!  My name is Collin Chou. I was born in Taiwan and I grew up there. When I was about 12 years old, I started my movie career as a stuntman. Yeah, hard to believe – I was only 12.  After five years working in the movie industry as a stuntman, finally I met Sammo Hung. He was trying to find a guy – a teenager – to be in a movie he was producing. One of my friends who was an actor in Taiwan introduced me to Sammo. I was very lucky to be chosen to be in that movie, to be a lead when I was only 18 years old. After finishing that movie, I went to do my military service for two years. After finishing my two years of military service, I went to Hong Kong to pursue my acting career. I joined Sammo’s team for seven years. In 1999, I decided to go to America because I wanted to study. So I went to America and a lot of people thought I was crazy because I didn’t have any connections when I first got there. But I went there because I really wanted to study. You know, I didn’t study my whole life when I was a kid because I come from a big family. I have eight brothers and four sisters. I am number eight. So not every one of us could get an education. I decided I wanted to work to help support my family. That’s why I went to work very early.

Anyway, I went to America – to LA. Even though I’d been in Hong Kong for ten years, from 1989 to 1999, and I made over 35 movies, I wasn’t satisfied as an actor. If you are an actor in Hong Kong and you play a very successful character in one of the movies, all the filmmakers, producers, or directors will ask you to play the same character over and over again. So instead of getting my bank account rich, I wanted to get my [gestures towards his heart] rich. So I gave myself an opportunity to pursue my education.

When I got to America, I didn’t know how to speak any English – not even A-B-C-D.  How many alphabet letters were there?  I didn’t even know. So I began with just A-B-C-D and after one month, I went to school for my first section of my English training which is called ESL (English as a Second Language). I stayed there for about half a year and then I transferred to another community college which is called Pierce College. I feel right now if I am not on set working, I will just go wherever the classes are available. I will just take classes because I want to study.

After I was in America for almost a year, The Matrix creators, Andy and Larry Wachowski asked me to join pre-production for the Matrix sequels. So I was very lucky and very honored to work with Yuen Woo Ping’s team. I  demonstrated all the stunts and fighting sequences for Keanu Reeves. That was very early in pre-production. Then about two months later I finished the pre-production and then I just waited – and almost seven months later until the film started and then somebody called me and told me the Wachowski brothers would like me to join the movie – actually two movies which were Matrix 2 and 3. I got the part of a character called Seraph, the Protector of the Oracle. So that was my first step taken toward Hollywood. It was like a dream because I didn’t think I could get a part in such a movie. The movie [The Matrix] was such a great movie and known all around the world and I didn’t think I could get a part – even as an extra. I am lucky they liked me and talked with me and during the two months of pre-production they recognized my ability to do my job well.

Collin
(from Men's Health Magazine)

You know, Jackie writes a diary on his official website and he mentioned you. He said that he was very impressed with your kung fu and thought you had the potential to be an action star. He also was very impressed and appreciative of what you had achieved in learning English. He said you were very humble and hard working and that he really admired that. What are your feelings about Jackie?

Collin:  Well, Jackie is very much admired by people my age because we watched his movies while we were growing up and until right now I still watch his movies. All of his movies convey a lot of great messages. For example, when you are facing difficulties in your life, never give up, never surrender. That’s a great message he is trying to convey. He uses body language, kung fu or other martial arts to give these messages to audiences. When I got the opportunity to go to Hong Kong and work for Sammo Hung, I felt very lucky and I appreciated being part of Sammo Hung’s team which gave me a lot of opportunities to work with Jackie. For me, Jackie is such a nice guy. He also comes from a stunt background, being a stunt performer for so many years. So he has always treated me and the other stunt people so generously. I always want to learn new things from him, especially his personality. He’s so easy to get along with and everything’s so easygoing, especially when I got into this team. At first they thought maybe Jackie was going to be difficult to work for because he’s such a big star but it was totally different because he’s so easy to work with, and everybody was talking about how he’s so nice and generous. All the good words you can think of – I heard all of the good words around the set when they were talking about Jackie.

You’ve worked on many films; you’ve worked on the Matrix films in Hollywood and now you’re working on The Forbidden Kingdom here in China. Do you feel any differences in the way the productions are handled?

Collin:  Well, I don’t feel any difference between working in Hollywood and working here. Working in the movie business is all the same because even though the language is different – speaking English in Hollywood, Mandarin here [in China], the passion is the same. Filmmakers are trying to work for the best and to perform their best to show the audiences all around the world.  I was pretty lucky. I must say that I’m the luckiest guy alive to be part of this film; to be working with the biggest martial arts legends in the world in their first time together on the big screen. To be a part of that is tremendous!

A lot of movie productions are beginning to come over to China for filming. Do you think that this will increase opportunities for Asian actors?

Collin:  Definitely. China is more and more open now and more big studio productions are coming here. More Asian actors can have opportunities to work with productions that will be shown all around the world, like this one.

So do you think that in the future, China will be as well known for filmmaking as Hollywood is?

Collin:  Well, the good part that I see right now is that the filmmakers in China are so hungry so they work very hard. Here it is so much cheaper. For example, if you spend one dollar in America to hire one person, here you would spend one dollar to hire five. So there’s much more manpower to work on the set. Because people work so hard, it brings an energy to the set.

Both Sammo Hung and Jackie came from the same martial arts schools, but they have different styles of working. Can you talk a little bit about the differences working with Sammo as opposed to working with Jackie?

Collin: They are similar in that they are both very generous. In fact, we call Sammo “Big Big Brother” and of course Jackie is Big Brother. For me, after working with Sammo for so many years, he is a little bit like a father and a friend. He taught me a lot during the years I was working with him. It’s hard to compare Jackie and Sammo. For me personally, Sammo Hung is more like “Father” – very strict. Jackie is more of a social type. He can talk to anybody on the set and he will sit right down on the floor and talk with you. He’s like your next-door neighbor. With Sammo, you’ve got to get to know him first and then talk to him otherwise you might be a little bit scared of him. Until right now, I am still a little bit scared of him. I don’t know why…nature. But when I see Jackie, it’s not the way I see Sammo Hung. Jackie is much more easygoing and he makes you calm down and relax whereas with Sammo you feel like you are facing a father or like a teacher or master always watching you. But Sammo always treated me very well when I was working with him.

You’ve done a lot of action films. Have you done much drama?

Collin: Yes, a couple of years ago I did an indie film in America called American Fusion and it’s going to be released in August of this year. The movie won the Best Movie of the Year at the 2005 Hawaiian Film Festival. It’s a romantic comedy.

So you like to try different genres of film?

Collin:  Well that’s the great thing about Hollywood. They’re more generous – probably the culture is different. They don’t recognize you very well and you're not typecast in the early stages so that can give you more opportunities. If you stay in the same movie, okay, maybe you will be typecast. So after two Matrix movies, I turned down a lot of projects, which made my manager very upset. So last year I disconnected my relationship with my old agency. I got a lot of offers for action movies and I just want to try different genres or different types of movies. I just want to have more opportunities to try different things.  Doesn’t mean I won’t play action movies again, but it must have a soul and a heart. A lot of people ask me “Are you not going to do any bad guy role?” I will. As long as the character has soul and heart. Kind of like this one [The Forbidden Kingdom]. I don’t see my character as a bad guy because every character – even though you may be playing a bad guy – you need to find his good heart to convey his good way. And then when you play the good guy, you have to find his bad point. One actor I’m very impressed with is Meryl Streep. When she delivered the character in The Devil Wears Prada, I thought she was a great guy; she was not evil! It was very seductive. So I try to play my part in this movie like that kind of character.

So you found the heart in the character you play in this movie?

Collin:  Yeah. I’ve been preparing very hard for this movie. I’ve been looking forward to working with “the two Js.” 

Collin with Jackie and Li Bing Bing.

When producer Casey Silver told Jackie that they’d chosen you to play the part of the Jade War Lord, Jackie was very happy and told Casey, “Yes! You have found the right guy for that part.”  Why do you think they felt you were so suitable for the role?  What ability or quality of yours do you think they found so perfect for the Jade War Lord character?

Collin:  When they started to contact me last year for this movie, I didn’t think I would be able to be a part of it because I had a commitment for another movie which would be shooting at the same time. So I didn’t commit for this one even though they asked me for casting. I was working on my last movie in Hong Kong for five months and when the time came that director Rob Minkoff really wanted to see me, he came to Hong Kong for a meeting and he wanted me to read for him. So I told him that I didn’t have time to study, but if I played this character, I would know how to convey for him and the audience and then I just showed a little bit. I didn’t study, but Rob Minkoff still wanted me to read it. I said okay, so I began to read it very slowly but with my voice, I added atmosphere to the character. And he said “Yeah! That’s the way I want it.” 

So I went back to LA and Rob Minkoff called me and asked me to his house, where I met Casey Silver and then both of them wanted me to read again because they had changed the script and my part, making it more dimensional which really attracted me. I really wanted to turn down the other commitment, but I really wanted to see what the end of [The Forbidden Kingdom] would be. So I had a very nice conversation with Casey Silver and they told me straight about how long they would need me for, etc. which made me think that they had already agreed that they wanted me to be on board.  But I was so scared – how could I turn away from the other job? Well, luckily, the director and producer of the other job knew that there was a better opportunity for my career, so they asked me to continue [with Forbidden Kingdom]. So they were very generous. That movie was a great movie (actually, two movies) but they just thought that the plot of that movie was not on my character so they rather just let me go.

I have been waiting and waiting for so long – since I was a kid – to do a movie in front of the camera with Jackie Chan. I think a million people wanted to be a part of this movie. For me it is a dream come true.

Here I really want to thank a lot of people for doing a lot of good work for me, making a lot of directors and producers to be more confident about putting me on board. So I really want to thank them.

Collin talks to the press at The Forbidden Kingdom press conference in Hengdian, China

So where do you live now?

Collin:  I live most of the time in LA. I still need to study. If I am in Hong Kong, I don’t have time to study. You know, my studies are quite tough. When I got to America, even though I had friends there, they spoke Chinese. I told them for a whole year, please just don’t contact me and I won’t contact you because if we hang out, we will just speak our language and I really wanted to study. I went to school for 8 hours a day the first year. I had three classes, a total of eight hours a day, five days a week. When I finished my classes, I needed to talk to somebody; I needed to practice my English. So in the end, I went to the YMCA and told them I wanted to be a volunteer because I wanted to get the benefit and training of talking to the customers and members. They said, “No no no! We can pay you.” I asked them how much and they said “Eight dollars an hour.” I said, “Okay!” I just wanted to work to practice my English. So after school I went there for five or six hours.

You know, it’s tricky. If you want to be a personal trainer, you have to get your license. They gave me a book about strength training; a book about three inches thick! A month later, you need to go for your test and they give you a certificate for being a trainer. I studied for one month, just absorbing all the words, the names of all the muscles, sixty-something parts! Most of the parts are medical terms, it’s not like regular language. After I finished my test, I forgot all of the parts because I just couldn’t absorb them into my head. A month after the test, I got my three certifications: Personal Trainer, YMCA Instructor, and I’ve forgotten the name of the third certification. So I became a trainer and I met a lot of members. I would go to school and whatever vocabulary and grammar I learned at school during the day, I would use at night when I was working. And the customer would tell me which way was right, which way was wrong. I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on a personal English tutor, so this was good for me.

Finally, a year later, I contacted my friends who spoke Mandarin and they were all very impressed.

Well, we’re very impressed that you could do so much!  Did you sleep at night?

Collin:  Only four or five hours a night for one and a half years. So then I got the part in the Matrix movies and Warner Brothers gave me a dialogue coach and an acting coach which brought me another opportunity to open my eyes to what acting is. My acting coach studied at the Stella Adler School which is Method Acting. So after the movie, I went to that school on Hollywood Boulevard and studied Method Acting.

Did it help you?

Collin:  Yeah, it really opened my eyes and I got a lot of education about acting. That’s the way an actor has to do it. If you want to be a serious actor, you can't just take every job they offer you. You have to think it through first.

Well, Collin, thank you so much for talking with us.

Collin:  Thank you!

To learn more about Collin, visit his official website here.

Text and photos ©2007 The JC Group. All Rights Reserved.

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