4. Why do you like Cymbeline best?

您最喜欢莎士比亚的作品是《辛白林》，为什么呢？

Cymbeline is my favorite play in the world. Because it has everything. Shakespeare wrote..people understand, Shakespeare comedies and tragedies and histories. But his last 4 plays are different from comedies and tragedies and histories, they're called "Romances". We don't use that word in a way that we use it now, it doesn't mean romantic love, it means they're sort of fairy tales. They began tragically but have happy ending.

For many years, people thought that Shakespeare was going up up up, get writing in greater greater and better better place and then he got old and tired and wrote these fool silly plays in the end. They thought something happened people didn't like these plays, they didn't understand these plays, but the fact is he just kept going up and up, he never stop. People still teach in colleges that these plays are lesser plays but they are not, because they contain everything. They have tragedy, they have comedy, they have magic, they have fantasy. For me, they're also the most theatrical plays. They're not trying to create a real believable world, they are fairy tales.

Cymbeline is a play that has everything in it. It's magical, t's beautiful, it's funny that the great English poetist of the 19th century, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, when he was buried, he made sure he was buried with this copy of Cymbeline. So some people do love it as much as I do, but most people never heard of it, most people still don't know it. But I would like to that actually here in china.

因为《辛白林》包含了一切！人们知道莎士比亚写喜剧、写悲剧、写历史，但是他的最后四部作品和这些都不一样，这最后四部被称为“浪漫剧”（Romances）——这和我们今天所谓的“浪漫爱情剧”不一样，它们更像是“传说、童话”。它们以“悲剧”开场、以“喜剧”收尾。这么多年来，很多人解读莎士比亚时总是认为他的写作生涯一路向上、但当他年老却突然衰落，写了最后这四部失败的作品。但其实我认为莎士比亚的写作从来没有衰落过。他的最后四部作品拥有一切元素：喜剧、悲剧、想象……而他并不企图模仿一个真实的世界，剧中就是一个童话世界。所以《辛白林》拥有一切。我最终会在中国导这部戏的！

5. Your favorite work Cymbeline, as well as the Twelfth night, is a play with strong female characters. What do you find unique about the female characters in Shakespeare’s plays?

导演最喜欢的辛白林，加上这次的第十二夜，其中的女性形象都很强势，请问导演是怎样理解莎士比亚作品中的女性的呢？

Shakespeare wrote strong characters periods, that's what makes them interesting, that's why Shakespeare has lasted four hundred years, not because teachers say he's a great writer, you must study him, it's because actors want to act these parts. That's why Shakespeare’s' are always enduring.

As for the female characters, they won't be played by females, they're all played by boys. All of them in Shakespeare's day, women were not allowed on the stage. So in 12th night you would have a boy playing a girl pretending to be a boy. So at the same all the other plays would have woman-dressed man. So I don't know that Shakespeare’s female characters are any stronger than his male characters.

I know in 12th night, to me, the central, the heart of the play is the two female characters, the woman who was in love with a girl-dressed boy. With all these crazy things going on, people get mixed up. but to me it's about two women. if you took the two women out of the play, then you would have like comedy of heirs in earlier Shakespeare's play, which is the same idea, people getting mixed up or people who looked the same. But it's the relationship (between) these two very strong women, one is named Olivia, one is named viola. Those names are almost anagrams; same letters spell the same word. Olivia spells "i-viola".

So Shakespeare's telling us something, he's telling us that they're very alike, they're very intelligent. They both have lost their brother, or Viola thinks she has lost her brother. And they're both terribly lonely. So the relationship between these two women: how they change, how they are drawn to each other, is to me what the play is all about. It's a lot comedy in the play, but people would laugh at anything, so the comedy is fun, and it's good to have strong actors doing it. But to me, as I said, the emotional heart of the play is these two lonely women who are drawn to each other, there are different reasons.

莎士比亚笔下的角色并不都是强势的，他在不同的时期写下不同的角色，这非常有趣，也是他的作品能流行整整400年的原因。不是因为老师们说莎士比亚好、他就能成为经典，而是因为演员们希望能扮演他笔下的角色。说道莎士比亚笔下的女性，在莎士比亚的年代女孩是不允许上台表演的。所以台上的女性角色都是男生扮演的。而在《第十二夜》中，你就能看到“一个扮成女孩的男孩，再假装自己是个男孩”的有趣情景。所以我不好说，是不是莎翁笔下的女性角色就一定比男性的强势，不过在《第十二夜》中，故事的核心就在两个女主角身上。如果把这两个女性从剧中抽离，那这部戏会变成一部早期的莎士比亚喜剧。而正是因为有了这两个女性角色，让整部戏变得有趣起来。

在这部戏中我们有两个个性很强的女主角，一个名叫Olivia，另一个叫Viola，几乎是相同的字母、拼出不同的名字来。所以单从名字就看出莎士比亚用的心思，他是在告诉我们，这两个女子很相似、都很聪明、都失去了哥哥（至少Viola以为自己失去了哥哥）、她们都非常非常孤独。所以这部剧整个在讲述的是这两个女子间的关系，她们如何改变、如何被彼此吸引。

6. I heard you started reading Shakespeare in a very young age. Why is Shakespeare attractive to you when you were only 8? What has changed about your attraction?

听闻导演从小就开始阅读莎士比亚的作品，你认为他的作品有何魅力让一个仅仅8岁的孩子就喜爱莎士比亚的，或者说他的著作中最吸引你的一点是什么。

It's interesting that I discovered Shakespeare in the library when I first got my first library card. I saw he's on special sections. I must have heard of him, I think everybody has heard of him, even Chinese kids could name Romeo and Juliet. but I saw all these books-40 books, and I was attracted to them as a reader as far as my ego more than anything else I just knew for right away that if I could understand these books then I could understand anything in English. so I think that was the challenge, it wasn't anything like do acting or performing. It was wanting to know. all these books were obviously set aside, means very special in the library. then I thought if I could understand what's on these pages then I could understand anything. That I think was the appeal.

It was only later in my life when an old professional theater opened in my hometown and i'm not sure why I was drawn to it, but I went there and I knew immediately this was going to be my life. The people there, and it's funny to say this, but in a way they were the first real people I’ve ever met. They were authentic artists, people who were serious about their work. and it was not about being silly Hollywood movie stars or something, it was about real work. They set me on my path, set me on my directions, set me to the right teachers. I realize before I was 15 that i'd probably done little skip some places and schools, but until that moment I never realize this is something you could do in your life, seriously. so that was it for me.

It's like living a life of monk, there's no guarantee of fame and fortune, and in a way that's been better for me as an actor. i've worked in Hollywood, I have done a few films, I had contracts, studio, made a lot of money. but if i, let's say, was 27 and became a big tv star, I would never have done Shakespeare to this degree. but i've done him, I exploited him. You get sidetrack by all of that. and though I still believe I will do very well in china, i'm a better actor for not having that kind of career. i've been around it, i've been basked against it, but it's always been the theaters for me. I love the movies, I won't turn down the movie, but for me it's the theatre.

Nothing has changed. It’s Shakespeare’s limitless, you can't run a well dry（沪江小编注：The well's run dry. 英语谚语，形容一种资源枯竭）. There’s always more to learn and more to understand, I think we're still catching up with Shakespeare, there're plays like "Timon of Athens"（雅典的泰门）. Nobody likes this play, nobody understands this play, I think it's a wonderful and great play. We haven't caught up it, Shakespeare is still ahead of us, it's a Buddhist play, it's got Buddhist philosophy. But people don't understand that, they don't know, so Shakespeare is still ahead of us, for hundred years we're still catching up. I think someday may be Timon will be appreciated. it'a very modern play, it's in two halves: black and white. So I don't know if I can say my attitude has changed, I'm always happy to explore Shakespeare, there's always more to learn. This is my 5th time run 12th night, it's 6th time doing it in Chinese, and i'll still be discovering. It can't exhaust me.

我第一次接触到莎士比亚时的确只有八岁，我拿着自己第一张图书借阅卡到图书馆去，发现了一整个书架上都是他的书。我当时也没想别的，就觉得这个人肯定很厉害，如果我能读懂他的书、那我就能读懂所有英语！那其实是一种小孩子给自己的自我挑战吧，当时和表演并没有什么关系。

等我长大一点，一个话剧表演团来到我家乡的小镇。很奇怪我当时一看到他们，就知道这样的工作就是我想要的人生。这么说可能不太对，但他们是第一群我看到的“真正的人”——努力工作、热爱自己的事业，不是那些卖弄花俏的好莱坞明星，就是踏实地表演。在我15岁以前，我就知道这是我一辈子要做的事情。这个行业有点像苦行僧，不会给你什么名誉、金钱。我其实也涉足过电影行业，还和一个公司签约过，演了几部电影。但是我想，如果我在27岁时成了什么大明星，那我可能一辈子也没有机会研究莎士比亚到现在这个程度。

而对于莎士比亚，他一直以来都吸引着我，没有改变。我想莎士比亚的戏剧走在我们的时代之前，我们还在追赶着他（的思想）。比如他有一部晚期作品，叫做《雅典的泰门》（Timon of Athens），没人喜欢这部作品。这部作品中包含了一些佛教的思想，没人真的懂。所以我想莎士比亚还走在我们前面。这次中文版的《第十二夜》将是我第六次接触这部作品了，但我仍然觉得有新东西值得挖掘和探索。