A Quote by Shannon Lee
When I started acting in my twenties, a director on the set of an action film shouted, 'Just do it like your dad would.' I couldn't. I can only do things as I'd do them.
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I approach every film I do in the same way, whether it's an action film or not an action film. I guess if a certain physicality lends itself to action, but I started acting before I reached puberty. I was 7 years old when I started acting. It wasn't until I became a bouncer in New York.
The director is the only person on the set who has seen the film. Your job as a director is to show up every day and know where everything will fit into the film.
My tutor was a film director on the side, and she introduced me to film. She then put me in one of her short films, and it came out of that. That's when I fell in love with the process of making a film. After that, I was about 15 and I was like, "This is what I've gotta do." So, I started taking acting lessons, and then I applied to college to do acting. I got an agent, and it all just happened.
I'm not really sure if I have anything that inspires me. I think what goes into my work is everything beforehand that I do with my dad. He teaches me acting, and I think maybe without him it would be pretty hard. I started acting for fun, really, because my dad's an actor and my sister's an actor, so I started doing it and it was normal. But it got places really fast, and I started doing feature film auditions and stuff.
After 'Rock On!,' when I started acting, and I sang in the film, people asked me, 'What was the need to sing in your film?' and things like that. I really don't have an answer for it. In terms of what made me do it? It just felt like the right thing to do.
Well, I kind of did the math in my head when I was like, 9. I was like, 'Well, if I want to make films' - because I want to be a director - 'I could just go on a film set and learn there.' And then I ended up falling in love with acting and the set and making friends all the time. And so I've just been doing that ever since.
I only would say yes to a film, do a film or any project, if I think I would watch it. Whether the audience will like it, not like it, how will they take to the film, these are not things in your control and you shouldn't bother about them.
I always enjoy working with an international crew and director. But on the set of a Hollywood action film - now that's a whole other world. The sheer grand scale of the way things are done over there makes me envious; it's just so different from the way things are done in Japan.
Your own barometer is all you have to go by, and often what makes a good director is knowing when not to say something. On occasions you can find yourself on a film set where the person who is wearing the director's hat is only trying to justify his position.
Once I started working as an assistant director, I just realized very quickly that working on a film set was just a perfect fit for me.
It's nice to have my mother as someone I can talk to about acting. My dad's a director, so when he comes to watch me on set, he think it's his set. He's always telling a production assistant, 'Can you get me five donuts?'
I kind of connected the dots, like, 'Oh, we're just saying stuff. We're just saying things that make sense, so let's just say them like you say them in real life.' It was my first and one of my only acting lessons 'cause I never really studied acting.
Acting is one of these things that I can't really describe - it's just like, why do you love your mum and dad? You know, you just do.
I've definitely had a bunch of action scripts sent to me, but again I'm a stickler for directors. If it's, like, an action flick with a great director, then it's like, 'Oh let's look at this thing,' but if it's just like a shoot-em'-up with a first time director, I don't know if that's the trajectory I want to take with what I'm doing.
I still audition a lot - it depends on the medium. For film, I audition just like everyone else, because it's a different set of casting directors. For television and theatre - well, for theater, there's some auditioning that has to happen, just for them to know that you can sing it, and how you'd take on the part. But for TV, things are getting a little better with, "Would you like to be a part of this?" But that's really for one - night things. It sounds like a pompous answer, if I say people are calling me to ask me to do things.
Directing is more what I would like to get into eventually. Frankly, I feel like it would be a waste if I didn't because I've spent so much time on film sets, and I know how they work, and I love them, and I love leading them. I would like to do that as a director definitely.
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