Meeting Maggie Cheung Man-yuk in a conference room at HSBC's Hong Kong headquarters in Central seems fitting in a way. Just like the multinational financial behemoth, the 42-year-old actor has outgrown her Hong Kong roots to become an international institution.
It's also apt that she's agreed to talk in a place completely unrelated to cinema. Cheung seems to have drifted away from filmmaking. Her last screen appearance was in Clean in 2004, and she has worked on only 10 movies during the past decade - two fewer than the number of films she did in 1993 alone.
But she says she doesn't miss the limelight. She revels in doing 'short things that don't last more than a week', spending most of the time 'floating around offices, modelling, doing photo shoots'. (Cheung is at HSBC because she's promoting its new financial services.)
'Making a film, you have to put so much into it,' she says. 'It takes up so much time. Sometimes you're in it for nearly a year just for one film, from the moment you talk to the director about the project, all the way through the preparations, the shooting, the dubbing, the post-production and the publicity tours. It goes on for a long time. In the past, you could finish your part, say goodbye to one and hello to the next. And I don't want to do it for something I don't feel for, something I don't really want to do.'
Cheung won't say if she regrets any of the low-budget comedies she started out in - Wong Jing's crass Boys are Easy comes to mind - before becoming an international star. Those days of making cheap comedies are far behind her now. It's 22 years since she made her debut as Jackie Chan's love interest in the action drama Police Story, two years after she was runner-up in the Miss Hong Kong pageant and had a brief career as a TVB actor.
Compare it with five years ago, when Cheung turned down an offer to star in X2: X-Men United, a sure-fire crossover to the English-language mainstream. 'I appreciate the existence of these films because, well, there are people who appreciate them,' she says. 'I'm not among them, though - I've never been a fan of these films. Making them would be ... boring. I can't see how it could be a challenge for me.'
Unlike some of her fellow thespians who have dabbled in directing or producing, Cheung isn't keen to try other roles in the industry. 'I don't love films that much. I like cinema but not to the point that I want to build a life around it. If [opportunities] come, it's great; if they don't, I'll move on. I don't really want to just be in one profession until I grow old. I began acting when I was 18, and it's not something I'd want to do when I'm 68. I'm in my 40s, and I'm beginning to switch careers. I can come back for a [film] project or two, but I've already begun building myself up for other things. I'll be comfortable knowing I'm capable of other things besides acting. Even if there are 10 more awards in the cupboard it's the same as now, really.'