Brigitte Lin Quotes

The rhythm in Hong Kong was much quicker, and there was a whole organization that took care of me. When my films were shown there, I became famous overnight. A lot of producers [reached out] to me and I didn’t know what to choose, what kind of offer to accept. In some cases, I simply wasn’t allowed to say no.

My motto is to always do your homework before any meeting or event, and to always dress for the occasion. Sometimes I say that it’s better to say nothing than to speak with no purpose!

There were no agents, no companies and as actors we had to do everything by ourselves. I would do my own make-up, prepare my own outfits from home and bring them to set the next day.

I almost got no sleep, shooting eight hours in one film, followed by eight hours in another and eight hours in a third film. But whenever we were done at the end of the day, I never thought of packing up. I always couldn’t bear to go home.

I never complained about the hardships. I just thought this was what I was supposed to do. I did that for 22 years. By the time I was doing Asia the Invincible, I felt like I didn’t have the energy to keep acting even though my heart wanted to. That’s when I thought about retirement. Swordsman II was a huge hit, and I told Nansun Shi that maybe it’s about time I retire.

While doing all this, I myself also developed my own personality and my way of acting, and the audience followed my growth. So when I played female characters who had strong personalities, I already had gone through some abundant, enriching real life experiences. By nature, I am a bit shy as a person, and so I was quite suited to making romantic films. I had many strong emotions in my heart, and I always wanted the audience to have a good impression of me, though I had many inner, suppressed feelings.

Writing is tiring and difficult, but I can sit at my desk for hours and hours, writing through the night to dawn. I never had any prior writing experience, but I learned that it’s not about using heavy vocabulary, and more about how I can express my sincerity.

That first experience of making movies was like being in heaven. I was so happy. Everyone treated me so well. I was so curious about acting; I love watching movies, so I really enjoyed it. Once, I was rehearsing on the set, and I felt so sad that people were leaving at the end of the day, but then I was relieved that we could keep doing this on the next day.

Whatever the director asks me to do, I will do and make him happy. I’m a fool.

Now we are living in the digital age. I feel very lucky and appreciative that young people now have the opportunity of coming to know the kind of films we shot in the past.