CHINESE actress Fan Bingbing discusses her international breakthrough in a quick Q&A with Neala Johnson.
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AMAZING FACE
In the X-Men comic books, Blink — a mutant whose power is teleportation — is depicted as caucasian. So when Chinese actor Fan Bingbing met with X-Men: Days of Future Past director Bryan Singer in LA, she asked why he was talking to an Asian about playing the part.
“He said, ‘I just want to find a face to amaze the world’,” recalls Fan. But it’s more than that: as the biggest film star in China, Fan is a gateway into a huge market for Hollywood, as the producers of Iron Man 3 had already figured out.
Fan Bingbing at the Australian premiere of X-Men: Days of Future Past. Source: Getty ImagesTHE HAIR APPARENT
To play Blink, Fan altered her fashion-industry-approved looks (she’s been the face of L’Oreal and promoted a line of Louis Vuitton handbags) by adding streaks of purple to her hair, bright green contact lenses and face tattoos.
“I was quite surprised when I first met myself in the mirror — it’s the first time I’ve played a mutant and I didn’t know what a mutant looks like! I was happy and shocked.”
Messing with Fan’s hair is a dangerous business — her long, luscious locks are considered her trademark in China. Luckily, she laughs, “they added dyed extensions to my real hair, so it was fine”.
Fan Bingbing as mutant Blink. Source: SuppliedFROM MUTANT TO MERMAID
Fan has smashed Chinese box office records and won awards with locally made dramas and rom-coms.
A Hollywood blockbuster like X-Men, she says, “is very different”, requiring “more imagination” and more awareness of “my moves, my looks and my emotions”.
More challenges were in store for the 32-year-old in Melbourne earlier this year: she plays the mermaid muse of Pierce Brosnan’s King Louis XIV in The Moon and the Sun, a role that required a lot of motion-capture work.
The Chinese star helps promote her X-Men movie at the premiere in Beijing. Source: APTHE CHAN PLAN
If X-Men is Fan’s international breakthrough, she’s set to consolidate it with a role as Jackie Chan’s niece in the Hong Kong-set action comedy Skiptrace.
“I would be much happier if I got more opportunities in Hollywood because there’s lots of things for me to learn,” she says.
But she’s not all about going global. “Life is more important than the work, so I’m going to enjoy my life more than the work. Everyone has a dream and for me it’s more like drawing on a piece of plain paper — I don’t want to expect the result, I just want to enjoy the process.”
■ X-Men Days of Future Past is now showing
The actress looked stunning at the Days Of Future Past world premiere in New York this month. Source: Getty Images
