Fredric Mao throws his arms up in the air and unwittingly answers the question which only minutes previously he had trouble explaining.
'If I hadn't been in the theatre I'd probably have become an environmentalist or something,' he says, bursting into laughter. 'I'd like to save the world.' I had asked the head of acting at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts why he had chosen George Bernard Shaw's St Joan as the basis for his production at the Hong Kong Arts Festival.
Joan, an illiterate French peasant girl, was vilified as a witch by the British and portrayed as a heroine by the French, who saw her as their nation's saviour. She was famously burned at the stake after claiming she heard voices which led to her challenge of the British siege of Orleans.
Perhaps, then, it was the idea of her being a heroine that Mao identifies with.
But he is also fascinated by her complex personality: 'From today's point of view, would she have been regarded as a religious fanatic, a psychopath? Maybe she was mentally ill. It doesn't only apply to Joan. We want to know more about the great leaders of today for example. To see a three-dimensional character.' Mao confesses he finds Joan's story passionate and special in today's society, which puts pressure on people to conform.
'What she represents, the conscience of a country, that sense of honour, of nationalistic pride. This kind of spirit touches me,' he said. 'I like the passion that this stands for. To believe in something and give your life to it.' He also thinks Shaw's use of language conveys this spirit wonderfully: 'The wit, the intelligence . . . it's very perceptive.' But Mao's work diverges a long way from St Joan in the experimental way he has chosen to stage it.