'Every day is different for an actor; that is what makes it exciting. It's not like a nine-to-five job, where you pretty much do the same thing [every day]. We never know what will happen. I'm spontaneous and I like this kind of life.
I wake up about 7am. I work out every morning. At home in Los Angeles, I have built an open wooden deck at the back of my house to practise tai chi. I'm very much into tai chi and qigong, so I practise them every morning. The workout takes about an hour and then I have breakfast. I always eat the same boring thing: cereal, such as muesli, with fruit and soy milk.
Then my day begins. I've just finished making a film with [filmmaker/producer] Norbert [Meisel], my other half, and now we are going into editing. Because I'm the producer on the film and star in it, there's a lot of work. The film is called Ray of Sunshine. It is a beautiful story about a young girl who comes to Los Angeles to look for her father. She has had a pretty turbulent life with her mother; she witnessed her mother getting killed by a powerful person, a judge. She discovers I'm her real mother, but I had to give her away for whatever reasons. It is an interesting, complex story - not just one dimensional.
I meditate to relax. It helps to centre me and I need that because there is so much going on. I believe you always need time to yourself; it is very important. Sometimes I paint to relax. I like to paint in oil and dabble in watercolours. When I'm on vacation, I like detective or spy novels. But at home, I read a lot of scripts.
When I'm not making a film, I'm writing a screenplay, working with someone else on something or bumming around with my girlfriends. You know, the usual things we do: trying not to work, just lazing about. I try to keep a balance in my life to keep it interesting.
The World of Suzie Wong was a film I made many years ago. It's not that I'm tired of it; it is just in the past. A lot of people who write on my website mention Suzie Wong or Flower Drum Song, so I guess they must have affected whoever saw those films for them to think about them years later. Suzie Wong was many years ago - 1960 - and Hong Kong has changed a lot since then.