Filmmaker Ang Lee’s actor son Mason Lee on playing ‘shy and reserved’ people like him, his first lead role in Stand by Me, and how an Al Pacino film inspired him
- Mason Lee, 31, is the younger son of Academy Award-winning Taiwanese director Ang Lee and appeared in his 2016 film Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
- Lee, who says his most challenging role was as a police officer in Hong Kong film Limbo, likes to play the underdog, as ‘characters who always win are boring’
Mason Lee – whose first film as lead actor, the Taiwanese romantic comedy Stand by Me, opens in cinemas in China on September 9 – says his role as the underdog whose dream girl does not reciprocate his feelings for her resembles the real-life him.
“I am not an alpha male in real life,” he tells the Post self-deprecatingly. “I don’t have a very handsome face. Jiu-bing [his character in the movie] is a loser in love; other boys always upstage him. So, when playing the role, I don’t need to be like the usual male leads in romance films who are handsome pop idols. I like playing the underdog, as characters who always win are boring.”
Lee adds that his shy and reserved personality lends itself to the role in Stand by Me. “Like Jiu-bing, I am at ease with people I trust. It also takes a long time for me to get familiar with people.”