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‘I am not Jackie Chan or Chow Yun-fat’: Hong Kong actor Lau Ching-wan on why Hollywood doesn’t need him, bad guy roles, and The Godfather
- Hong Kong actor Lau Ching-wan, often credited as Sean Lau, has adopted many roles in the years that he has been acting – and most have been heroic ones
- In a 1998 interview, he revealed the scenes he will never do, which movie he has seen more than 100 times and why films are easier than TV shows
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It was in the mid-1990s that Hong Kong actor Lau Ching-wan became a member of the unofficial stock company at director Johnnie To Kei-fung’s innovative Milkyway Image production house.
“In a city that often pigeon-holes its performers, Lau Ching-wan has become noted for his versatility. Action, drama, romance, comedy, he has done the lot,” effused the Post in 1998.
Lau, who is often credited as Sean Lau despite never adopting it as his own name, trained at Hong Kong broadcaster TVB’s drama school, and by this time had already appeared in around 50 films
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He had been a struggling saxophone player in the 1993 smash-hit romance C’est La Vie, Mon Cheri, a priest who falls prey to temptation in Final Justice, a cool-headed firefighter in Lifeline, and a good-hearted police officer in Expect the Unexpected.
The following interview took place with this writer during a break in the filming of To’s 1998 gangster drama A Hero Never Dies.
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You’ve played many different types of characters. Did this variety come about by accident or design?
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