Since landing his first screen role in the gay romance Bishonen in 1998, US-born actor Daniel Wu Yin-cho has worked hard to show there's more to him than good looks. The hunky star won a Golden Horse award as best supporting actor for his role in New Police Story in 2004. He made his directorial debut two years later with The Heavenly Kings, a controversial mockumentary about the local pop scene, for which he was named best new director at the Hong Kong Film Awards. The 35-year-old actor, who married model Lisa Selesner earlier this year, is now seen in Derek Yee Tung-shing's thriller Triple Tap. He plays a police officer and sharpshooting competitor whose sporting rivalry with a money manager (Louis Koo Tin-lok) turns into a game of life and death. This is not your first collaboration with Derek Yee. How does it feel to work with him again? It's the fifth time. I love working with Derek; that's why we've teamed up so many times. In fact, I don't even need to read the script before taking his offer because I know the quality will be good. He thinks from the character's point of view, not just from a story point of view, probably because he was an actor before. Whatever character you get is always an interesting one. Originally, the two roles in Triple Tap were switched around. Louis' character is a US-educated financier and a lot of people assumed I would play that role because I have a similar background. But the producers wanted to play against type. It's more interesting that way. Did you train in shooting for Triple Tap? Yes, we trained for two months. They found Hong Kong's best marksman in the International Practical Shooting Confederation, a good friend of Derek's, to teach us the basics. It's actually very simple: you pull the gun, shoot and go to the next target. But in that time, a lot can happen. It's like any other sport; you've to develop muscle memory. To be able to act without thinking and perform as efficiently as possible, you have to do it thousands of times. We were able to take a replica gun home, the kind we used in the movie but shooting BBs [bullet balls]. I got home, strapped it on, and just kept repeating the action all night long while watching television. My girlfriend was really frustrated. But you have to do that to get it into your system. After The Heavenly Kings, do you plan to direct another movie? Yes, I want to do it so badly. I've struggled for a long time with different stories, but have been too busy to do it. As an actor, you just spend three to four months on filming, maybe do a little bit of post-production and promotion afterwards, and then you're done. As a director, the project will take more than a year. But I'm not in a rush. I'm not relying on [directing] to bring home the bacon. When inspiration is there, I will go for it. Hopefully, in the next five years, there will be a second project. What films are you working on next? One is a sport film, about basketball. I love basketball, which is a huge growing sport on the mainland. Yet we don't have any sports movies in Hong Kong or mainland China. Another is a futuristic movie, though not sci-fi, about the direction our society is heading, with big business taking over everything, even politics and government. I think we are going that way already; a lot of politics is controlled by big business. I want to explore those issues and how they affect society. That's kind of a dream one, very big. You've set up a talent management company. How is it going? We're running well now. In the beginning, we were a little unsure of how to run the company. I just wanted to help friends such as Terence Yin [Chi-wai], Jun Kung and 24 Herbs, who all deserve more attention. Jun is a very talented musician who just had some bad experiences dealing with the business side of things. A lot of people have problems dealing with the business; they don't understand the logic. As a manager, my role is to help them along in their career, create opportunities for them to express themselves and go down an easier road. You will be hosting your wedding banquet in Hong Kong later this month. How will it go? We're just going to have a party, not a banquet. We want to avoid that, beginning with no shark's fin soup. And 24 Herbs and Jun will perform for us. When we got married in South Africa, not everyone could attend. So we want to share with all our friends here. Whose idea was it to get married in South Africa? Both of us. We have a special connection with the place. Lisa has been going there for more than 10 years and bought a piece of land and a house there. Every year, we take a month off and go there to relax. It has running water and gas but no electricity, so it's like camping. The first time I stayed there, I thought if I could spend a month with Lisa, 24 hours a day, without electricity, no computer, nothing to distract me, I could spend a long time with this girl. We have a great bond with the place; that's why we decided to share it with our family, to take them there to see how beautiful it was and how special it was to us. How are you enjoying life after marriage? Unfortunately, I've been working a lot since then and we haven't gone on a honeymoon yet. But it's not that different. We've been together for eight years and lived together for four or five. I think when kids come along there will be big changes. [Having children] is not something we can control easily. I don't want to put us under pressure by saying when, but hopefully as soon as we can.
