Maggie Quotes

It bothers me at times when people say, "Oh, her career went nowhere after "Gilligan`s Island" (1964). In actual fact, doing more film and TV was not my interest. My theater career has flourished and I cherish that. As an actor, I have always believed theater is the true art form. I have played in nearly 100 productions in my career, with roles ranging from Maggie in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" to doing "Menopause: The Musical". In film or TV, I would never have been given the opportunity to play such a range of characters.

(From 1994 interview when asked the reasons for the success of A Room with a View (1985)) "I`ve never seen it, so I don`t know. Florence was lovely of course, and it`s a wonderful love story. I did enjoy doing the part, because Maggie Smith and I were old friends from 1958. We both arrived in Florence on the same day and neither of us had any family with us, so we would spend all day together filming and then go out to dinner together, catching up on our Old Vic days. But, I didn`t enjoy working with James Ivory. I didn`t feel that I was on his wavelength and I didn`t feel that he wanted me in the film, I have to say that. I remember doing that scene in the middle of the square where she goes mad and attacks the man selling postcards; James went to see the rushes and told me afterwards that everyone had laughed at it, they`d thought it was very funny. `Well done`, he said to me. I thought perhaps we`d turned the corner but, when I came to post-sync the film, that scene was missing. When I asked why, he told me that Helena Bonham Carter hadn`t been feeling up to it that day, so he`d cut the whole sequence. I don`t know if that was the real reason he cut it - I just don`t know".

Hero (2002) was the first time I had ever worked on a mainland Chinese production. It was great to work with such a good cast that included Maggie, Jet Li, Chen Daoming, and Zhang Ziyi. I was particularly excited to work with Yimou, a director whose work I have always admired. When I first heard the story, I thought of Kurosawa`s Rashomon (1950). At that time, Yimou gave me a choice of playing the narrator, like Leslie Cheung did in Ashes of Time (1994). In the end, I did what Yimou wanted and played Broken Sword, who is the lover of Flying Snow, played by Maggie. Because I have a baby face, I was quite concerned about my looks in this film because I was to play a martial arts hero. I did not want to look unconvincing. I spent a lot of time working with Emi Wada, who designed all the film`s costumes, on the look of my character, as the wardrobe was very important to play this heroic figure living in ancient China.(On working with Zhang Yimou in the movie, Hero)

`She looks for happiness, and will do whatever makes her happy. I`m very pessimistic. Sometimes, out of the blue, she will want to do all sorts of things. I can`t deal with that, I have to plan everything properly first.` (On co-star, Maggie Cheung.

Yes, but the majority of his actors, those from the generation of Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung - they all came from the televisions.

Maggie Conlon made a huge jump today. If she runs like that, we can run with anyone in the state.

What I've learned the most through this, ... is how resilient Maggie is and how brave she is.