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Wong Kar Wai is a very intense character, very personable, and I believe in general he does not like and he would not want his actors to show their true looks and their true personality on screen.

The important thing is the storytelling and having a script that makes you feel you're living and breathing through the characters.

I have been waiting around to get the right script and the right director. For example, in the past, if a Hollywood director came to me with a script and wanted me to play a character, and she was a stereotypical Asian woman who gets into a fight and gets killed off quickly, that didn't seem to have much interest for me.

It's very rare that you get a director that lets you be creative and bring what you feel your character should do or should be.

I think one of the major things a director has to do is to know his subject matter, the subject matter of his script, know the truth and the reality of it. That's very important.

I look for the character to be something interesting, the script to have a good story and be original, and a director that I admire.

The writing is really hard. You're alone. It really pulls it out of you. You pull it out of your head. But when you're a director, you're shopping - you're picking this actor, you're picking this scene. It's like the most intense kinetic high-speed shopping of all time. You sit in a chair and it will all come rushing at you like a wind tunnel.

For me, it's important that the script is good. Then a good director will want to make it.

You need the words, you need the script, you need the material, you need the commitment, you need the passion, it's like we depend on writers, we depend on producers, directors depend on us and once things are in the divine order as they happen.

As an actor, you work to the script: that's our main priority. But you have to be aware and look around for things that help you bring that little bit extra, that touch of realism that rams the point home.