 HKCinemagic : Let’s move to your acting career. First, how did you get involved on Alan and Eric, Between Hello and Goodbye? |
| Paul Fonoroff : I knew Peter Chan from when we were assistant directors together, and we'd become friends. He went on to be a production manager on a number of films -- this was one of the stepping stones that led him to becoming a director. On one of those films, Sworn Brothers, they needed some foreigner extras for a courtroom scene. This was around 1986 or early 1987. I didn't have any lines, but was right next to one of the stars. Anyway, a couple of years later he was making his directorial debut, and there was a part for a foreigner, so he asked me to do it. That's the way I got most of my roles -- because I knew the director or producer, and they needed a foreigner who could speak Cantonese. Acting talent had nothing to do with it. (laughs). |
With Blacky Ko and Eric Tsang in Alan & Eric Between Hello and Goodbye
|
| HKCinemagic : How was the mood on the set? |
| Paul Fonoroff : Very carefree. We were filming in Stanley
[Ed.: in Hong Kong Island], in a seaside cafe. There was no tension at all. Well, at least not for me, since my part wasn't too big, (laughs) And I was in movie heaven, acting alongside Maggie Cheung and Eric Tsang and Alan Tam and Blacky Ko. Actually, one of my main scenes was cut out. Just me and Alan Tam in a “Da Pai Dong” [small street restaurant]. My best scene! I could have won an Oscar! (laughs) |
| |
| HKCinemagic : Your most famous acting job is in Once Upon a Time in China 2 as the English consul. Did you feel more pressure as it was more important
than a part as an extra? |
Paul Fonoroff : Most movies back then were shot silently, so there wasn't an intense amount of pressure to know my lines perfectly. Usually, I'd have to dub the lines later, which was the case in Alan & Eric. In a way, Once Upon a Time in China was easier because all my lines were in English, since I was the British consul. The ironic thing is that they didn't use me for the dubbing -- they wanted a proper British accent.. Later, as more movies were shot with sync sound, there would be a lot more pressure, because I don't have all that much confidence in my dialogue delivery, especially speaking Cantonese.
As an ally of Sun Yat Sen in Once Upon A Time China II
With OUATIC 2, they were in such a hurry to finish because it had to be shown for Easter and we finally finished like
six days before it's premiere. And Tsui Hark
had to finish the editing, dubbing, and get it cleared by the censors. He
was awake day and night. So, I was on the set for about one week. They had
lots of people waiting on the set, just in case they could get around to
doing their scenes. There were several days where I wasn’t doing anything,
I'd be there ten hours or more but they'd never get to me. I didn't mind at all -- it was exciting being in such an atmosphere, with so many stars and one Hong Kong's biggest directors. And I got paid very well, it was the biggest money-earning week in my life. The weather was miserable for a few of those days, when we were filming at Shaw Brothers. Everybody was very busy so the set wasn’t very friendly, but I felt privileged to be a part of it. |
Killed by Donnie Yen under Yuen Woo Ping’s instructions |
| HKCinemagic : Was it Tsui Hark himself who shot your scenes? |
| Paul Fonoroff : Yes. But my disappointment was that on the last day of shooting, we were filming at an old British army barracks in Tsim Sha Tsui, quite close to my home but I'd never been inside, before, because it wasn't open to the public. Lots of colonial era buildings. It was the scene where Donnie Yen strangles me. Time was running out -- I think the crew had to be out of there by midnight, so things had to be rushed and they gave up doing my close-up when Donnie Yen kills me. I remember it was Yuen Woo Ping who directed that scene. I'm sorry there's no close-up, but it's one of the most memorable movie-making experiences I ever had. I think it’s one of Tsui Hark’s best films -- and I don't necessarily praise the movies I've been in.
With a talented cast for Fight Back To School 2 |
| |
| HKCinemagic : Many parts given to the western actors are very stereotyped. In your small acting career, you got to play the police officer a lot of time. Did you try to bring a little more of personality to those characters? |
Paul Fonoroff : My parts were so small, I could not really bring much personality. And often, you would not know what the part was until you were on the set (laughs). A completed script in advance of shooting? This is another universe you are talking about.
I remember when we were doing Final Option, I asked them to give me the dialogue ahead of time. Some actors are able to read it once and remember everything, I’m not one of them. But if I tell that to the crew, they never believe me. "Oh, you’re being modest.” “No, I'm not. I need the dialogue in advance!" (laughs).
Of course, they never sent me the dialogue and when I arrived on the set, Gordon [Chan] was directing another scene so I told the assistant, “I still haven’t seen the dialogue." "You'll get it when he's finished with that scene." And so they finished the scene and I saw Gordon Chan in another room, sitting with the scriptwriter, writing my dialogue. And they quickly learned that I wasn't kidding when I said I needed time to memorize Cantonese dialogue. (laughs)
In Lawyer, Lawyer, in that one I had the most close-ups of any of my films. It was a very difficult shoot. The height of summer and very hot, and we were shooting inside in a building with a metal roof. And since it was sync-sound they couldn't turn on the air-conditioning. And I was wearing a judge's costume that was made out of blankets. And wearing a wig, which really trapped the heat. Between takes, they'd have to hose me down. (laughs)
This time I got my dialogue in advance, and I learned it perfectly. So, of course, it was totally changed once we got on the set. You might notice the judge looks down a lot when he's speaking -- it's because I was reading my dialogue. (laughs). When we shot the close-ups, they didn’t tell me to who I was talking to. So, it’s only when I saw the film, I realized, "Oh, Chingmy Yau is in this scene!” Or, "Oh, I was saying that line to Stephen Chow."
With Wu Fung in Inspectors Wear Skirts 4
|
| |
| HKCinemagic : In Inspector Wears Skirts 4, you
had a very good chemistry with Wu Fung. Did you create it on the set or was it the product of an earlier friendship? |
| Paul Fonoroff : I wanted to be friends with him but he was never friendly with me. He wasn't friendly but not mean either. People had told me, “Wu Fung will be so nice, and he always "adopts" the young people he works with and makes them his "godchildren”, well, not me! (laughs) I was hoping for it because he’s such a part of Hong Kong movie history. Never seen him since! It was one of my first films. I remember it was not a friendly set. In fact, the only person who was nice to me on that set was… |
| |
| HKCinemagic : Moon Lee? |
Paul Fonoroff : Oh, Moon Lee was very nice! I was her English teacher for a while. I knew her from The Protector and she hired me for English lessons. I think it was Golden Harvest who paid for the lessons. I used to go to her home all the time. We got along well. But the one I was referring to was Shirley Chan. She was so friendly, we didn’t have any scenes together but she was on the set, maybe her scenes were coming after mine, and she was the only one who was really friendly. And, of course, Moon…
Actually, it’s not that people were unfriendly but they were busy. People have their own stuff to do on a movie set. And maybe part of it is that some people are shy around strangers. For example, when I was in Drink, Drank, Drunk, I waited 45 minutes for Miriam Yeung to be ready with her make up and she didn't say a thing to me. I was right there in the room with her. But we had never met before, even though I think she knew who I was from TV, and after the shooting was finished, she was very friendly.
Inspectors Wear Skirts 4
An example that sticks in my mind is when I had a small part in Now You See Love, Now You Don’t, Mabel Cheung (the director) had been my co-host on TV, so I knew her already -- actually, that's probably the only reason I got the part. On the set, Do Do [Cheng], said “Hello” and that’s all she said to me to me the entire time, except when we had dialogue. Anthony Wong didn’t even say hello. And yet, the next time I ran into Anthony Wong on the set of Full Contact, he came up to me and he was so friendly, greeting me like a brother, and ever since he has always been very nice to me. So nice! Maybe part of it is that some people have an idea of what I'm like from TV, where I'm super critical. I never used to think that my TV persona would effect how people treated me but, in retrospect, maybe some people saw me on TV and thought I was mean.
Of course, it happened the other way, too. I remember I was reviewing a Roof With a View on TV, and said, "Many many people say this movie shows Rosamund Kwan is not a flower vase but she can really act. I completely disagree with that…I always thought she could act!" And I went on to praise her acting. Wow, the next time I saw her… (laughs). But it wasn't flattery. I thought she had a very dry sense of
humor and movies didn’t treat her very well. I usually don’t
criticize actors because it's not their fault they are given such lousy scripts. I do
criticize the bigger stars if they don’t pick better films to be in. Because when you get to a certain position, you have enough power to choose.
As a wine expert in Spirit of the Dragon
|
| |
| HKCinemagic : All the parts you had were given to you directly by directors or people in the business you knew. I guess you never thought about trying to make it a real second career? |
| Paul Fonoroff : It’s just impossible. This possibility doesn’t exist in Hong Kong. First of all, because I don’t fit in any category. I’m not a singer, I’m not cute and I’m a foreigner. And there are not many roles for foreigners anyway. And even more so now, where we've gone from a situation where there were 220 movies made each year to one with only about 50 movies a year. Even when there were 220 movies annually, there weren't many parts for foreigners, especially foreigners who weren't into action or kung-fu. My roles were quite small, though occasionally they had substance. Like when I played a reporter in What a Wonderful World. There was a scene with me and Andy Lau, and I had a lot of dialogue to memorize. Alas, about half of the scene was left on the cutting room floor. |
| |
| HKCinemagic :
There have been several westerners who have really tried to make a career in Hong Kong but it didn’t really work. Why do you think it’s impossible? |
| Paul Fonoroff : Well, Westerners are not a part of mainstream Hong Kong culture. Expats for the most part live in a different world, with different newspapers, different TV channels. The vast majority of Hong Kong people here are totally unaware of what’s going on in Hong Kong's English-language media. I've been writing for the South China Morning Post for nearly 20 years, and would say that the vast majority of Chinese people who are aware of me as a film critic would not even know that I write for this newspaper. They would know about me because of Chinese-language TV or radio but not because of, what is for me, the prominent aspect of my career. Most Hong Kong people probably don’t know my English name -- most people refer to me by my Chinese name; and they might not even know I can speak Mandarin, because their main exposure to me is through Cantonese language programs and not the Mandarin programs I did for the China or Singapore market.
Gregory Charles Rivers in Those Were The Days |
| |
| HKCinemagic : Was there any western actor who tried to build a career here
and succeeded in your eyes? |
| Paul Fonoroff :
Greg Rivers, to a certain extent. His Cantonese is really good, he can sing and act. Quite different from me (laughs). He's even performed on stage. But even with all his exposure on TVB, he was almost never given a chance to shine. He had the lead in Her Fatal Ways 4. But that’s very rare for a foreigner to have such a prominent role in a film. And so, even with his perfect Cantonese and audience recognition from TVB, he still wasn't able to have much of a career when compared to his Chinese counterparts. The same thing happened to the actor [John Wakefield] in Three Summers -- he had great linguistic skills and could act, but never got much of a chance.
Some of the best western martial artists who have worked in Hong Kong
(Mark Houghton, Jeff Falcon, Steve Tartalia, Vincent Lynn) in Outlaw Brothers
|
| |
| HKCinemagic : Did you get along with the group of martial artist working in HK at the time? |
| Paul Fonoroff : Oh, yes. They were always very friendly. But we didn't socialize much. I don't live in an expat area, and don't go to Lan Kwai Fong
[Ed.: leisure area for foreigners in HK Island] or the other social spots much. And we really didn't have all that much in common. Actually, when I first moved to Hong Kong, I had an idealized vision of this city as a place where people liked to get together -- I mean, people with similar interests, like movies or whatever. It had been that way in Beijing. But after
six toseven years, I realized it never was going to happen. And now, I'd probably reject it if it did happen. I'm afraid the experience here has made me a bit reclusive. |
|
|
Intext Links