Ang Lee OBS (Chinese: 李安; pinyin: Lǐ Ān; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese film director, screenwriter, and producer.
Only one time in my career I had that feeling, it was for this movie. It was right before we started the physical pre-production. I pre-visualized the whole ocean part before we made the movie, I was that prepared. At one point they seemed to want to drop it because it was really risky. The budget we proposed was a lot higher than they expected, they wanted to [drop it]. After all, it's a philosophical book and a literature property, it's not Batman.
I think doing period piece is easier, because after a certain distance, everybody is equal, I think. The relative contemporary is harder. I think that's the way it is.
I think, if allowed, 3D is a new film language. I can have more adventure exploring a new media, that's very exciting. 2D we know most of it, things haven't changed for decades; it's the same principles, so 3D's more exciting.
3D is quite a lot more advanced in animated movies; for live-action movies we're just taking baby steps, we're just in the beginning.
Americans are hidden dragons to me.
Everyone in the gay community doesn't think alike.
You have to know the rules, otherwise you have no tools to communicate to the audience, but to keep it fresh you have to break some. I don't choose genres as the element, but the material itself is the element, then I'll decide what genre I need. That's just how I work.
It's not a pleasure torturing actors, although some of them enjoy it.
3D is quite a lot more advanced in animated movies; for live-action movies we're just taking baby steps, we're just in the beginning. So when I think of doing that I was very excited. It didn't go as far as I think it should, I'm still a novice, but I think it's fair to say it's a new cinematic medium, experience.
A movie is really provocation. It's not a message, it's not a statement.
Now I'm kind of established as a director, I much prefer directing to writing.
As artists, we like night more than day sometimes.
I had to find my way of translating the excitement you get when you're reading comic books to the big screen.
Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.
I wanted to shoot straight, mainstream, somehow off-beat. Not only realistic West, which is quite unfamiliar to the world's population - even to a lot of Americans.
In my culture, there's a tradition that when you're in an overwhelming situation and you don't know what to do, you put yourself in a woman's shoes.
I have two sons in America, and all they care about in Chinese culture is Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
My mother loves me and everything goes well. I have no conflict with her, so that's not dramatic.
Every movie is unknown.
I am not particularly religious. But I think we do face the question of where God is, why we are created and where does life go, why we exist. That sort of thing. And it is very hard to talk about it these days, because it cannot be proven. It is hard to discuss it rationally.