What Todd Babcock said about Leslie back in 98 -part2-
Our first scene together was to be a rather awkward one. It's the scene where
QuiQui first brings me to her apartment to find the shot-up Jin. It was very cold at the time and Leslie had only a t-shirt to wear so we were constantly throwing
blankets on him.So I am to come in and take his pulse and then , after getting out my supplies, tear open his shirt to reveal his many war-wounds. I thought,'great', my first few acting minutes with Leslie Cheung and i have to tear his shirt off! The make-up was very delicate on his chest and we only had one shirt so he looks at me and says with a smile "You better get it right!" This, of course, did not help. So I hold the shirt and he immediately says "Wait...haven't you ever torn a shirt off before?" Of course, Leslie. I usually never bother with buttons and such. When I get home I just tear away and buy a new shirt the next day... So Leslie takes my hands and positions them for the camera and says not to worry about going too hard. This was the first steps of our relationship on the film. Leslie taking my hand , either literally or figuratively, and getting through things. The shirt tore open beautifully and it was sort of a christening of our friendship. In the time that followed I would also come to befriend his assistant and his manager. You got the sense that the people that surrounded Leslie were like his family. That they had been with him a long time. They were very friendly and in time came to start looking after me as well. That scene, by comparison, was easy compared to the next day and the many shoots we had the rest of that month. The next days with Lesie was the shooting in Payne's apartment where Jin comes to me with his telling of his wife's suicide and the trade he is willing to make. Leslie, this time, got to wear much warmer clothes and as we sat waiting for the crew to set-up we chatted. I introduced him to Lian yi and we talked about film and China and the States. Leslie then exposed his secret love of McDonald's cuisine. I found it very amusing that I had come all the way to China to learn about it's life, history and foods and was only to learn that we would be eating McDonald's on the set. But, actually, that was a rarity. Leslie had it brought it on occasion but we mostly had food with the crew. I actually preferred the chinese cuisine in Shanghai more preferable to anything like Wendy's and McDonald's but those two places could be accessed easily if we were hungry in the middle of the day and the food wasn't ready yet. I probably gained ten pounds shooting 'A Time...'incidentally. So, as Leslie offered me coffee and burgers, I tried to get him to break on his resolution to quit smoking. I had heard that he smoked quite often back in the day, but Leslie was resolute due to the fact that he had recently began touring again (I had no idea that he was a famous singer before he was an actor). But he said he didn't mind if i did and so I proceeded to smoke away. I was not a regular smoker BEFORE I went to China...but when the entire crew, director, translater...EVERYONE smokes around you ...you tend to pick up the habit. It was also a way to deal with the pressure of being at the center of such a large project....when we were in script meetings, Bob asked how we could think with so much smoking. Daying responded, "How can you think without!" That made alot of sense at the time... So, after burgers and cigarettes we attempted our sacene. We were going to shoot 2 scenes back to back. First, Jin's story and then right into the scene folowing the flashback. I found that I was not at my best that day. The scene went well but I was not feeling 100 percent. I think, looking back, I was a little nervous with my first real scene with Leslie. It did not come to matter...we ended up rewriting and shooting that scene 3 times. So, let that be my lesson...don't worry about everything being perfect in a film. It may never be seen anyway. It was after that day that I got into my groove with Leslie. We had a long shoot in the house that was being used for the concession where i meet Jin at the map. The house was beautiful and much warmer than most of the sets so we were already happier upon arrival. Leslie was wearing a large winter jacket with a fur-trimmed hood and was in good spirits. Meiting, Leslie and I sat about playing around at the piano. That reminded Leslie and he gave me a gift...a vcd of one of his concerts. We sat down around a large table and had a discussion about the scene. Everyone had alot of ideas with the way it should sound and the way it worked. We talked through the scene and tried it alot of ways. This was where it truly helped that leslie spoke three languages. he was the ONLY one who could speak cantonese, mandarin and english. Therefore he could negotiate between myself, the director and the writer very quickly and smoothly. (He also did the production a great favor and brought in his own photographer from HK who would shoot publicity shots all through rehearsal instead of keeping us hours after the shoot when we were all exhausted!) |
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