WHO says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Not that anyone is calling Chow Yun-fat a dog, mind you, especially since he is spearheading the Hong Kong acting industry's first serious stab at Hollywood stardom.
But Chow, who has just verbally accepted the lead role in Columbia Pictures' The Replacement Killer, is certainly finding life in the United States a learning experience.
'It's good for me,' said a cheerful Chow over the telephone from Los Angeles. 'If I continued to be the kind of actor I used to be in Hong Kong, I would only have ended up being spoilt by the audience and the film-makers.
'Here, I am learning from scratch. It's not easy, but it also marks a turning point in my life. It's important that I can take the first step. Let's face it, the film industry is the same machine everywhere. I just have to change my native tongue to English, that's all.' Since moving from his Clearwater Bay home to the City of Angels with his wife, Jasmine, three months ago, Chow has kept himself busy trying to get his foot in the studio doors and brushing up on his erstwhile limited English.
'I've been spending a lot of time talking to the studio people and discussing the different roles and characters with them. My English isn't all that good, but I just use every word I know to tell them how I view the characters,' he chuckled.
A language teacher goes to his home to give him an hourly lesson in English every day, but, Chow added, 'homework takes about three or four hours'.
'I've got loads of homework everyday . . . on grammar, writing and American slang. I've also got to watch a lot of television.' The actor rates his present English skills as 'OK' as long as it is nothing too complicated. 'I can handle normal conversation. But when I start work on a film, I will have to get a special dialogue coach to teach me my lines,' he said.
