So one of the most unique things on screen in American movies today is everyday behavior.
The thing is there have been American movies that are similar to Solaris, like Alien had a lot of things that are similar, although it's also got the horror element.
America always seemed to me this foreign land that I imagined I could escape to if I needed to get away - and I think that came both from the fact that I was born there and from watching so many American movies when I was a kid.
I look at American movies, the big muscles, and try to apply that to Chinese film-making.
'Diary of a Teenage Girl' was my first American movie. It was my first movie in an American accent. It's based on a graphic novel, which was written in 2002 by someone called Phoebe Gloeckner. It was turned into a play by Marielle Heller, who then wrote it as a screenplay for Sundance Labs.
I think it's that thing of growing up all the time watching American movies and listening to American music. It hits you in a way that's a lot purer because you are not in that culture that you're watching.
I never thought about how I didn't have a cell phone or I'm in 2011. I was just so happy to be able to be a character in the 30s and there are these actresses that I really liked in the 40s, 50s and 60s in American movies that I've seen since I was a little girl. But you don't really think like that when you prepare for a role.
Maybe every other American movie shouldn't be based on a comic book. Other countries will think Americans live in an infantile fantasy land where reality is whatever we say it is and every problem can be solved with violence.
The whole world loves American movies, blue jeans, jazz and rock and roll. It is probably a better way to get to know our country than by what politicians or airline commercials represent.
I'm a singer and working on my second album. I write and produce. There is so much more that satisfies me. So there's not just this one ambition to become an American movie star. Because I will never become an American movie star.
