The same principles that governed the search for the writer...
...governed the search for the director.
We wanted somebody who could bring exactly those same qualities...
...a mixture of satire and romance.
And as I said, it's not an easy mixture to find.
And Sydney Pollack actually saw The Wedding Banquet before I did.
It was genuinely funny, but full of a kind of heart.
It was deeply moving.
And that, of course, was the object with the Jane Austen materials.
Again, to try to dissuade people that this was serious...
...with a capital "S" material, that it was a comedy.
And then I saw Eat Drink Man Woman.
And we got to talking a lot about who was this Ang Lee...
...who was making these movies that were off the beaten path...
...but managed to be comical and deeply moving at the same time.
Ang Lee graduated from New York University's film school.
And he made a fantastic short film there...
...which immediately grabbed the attention of Hollywood.
And he was signed up by a major talent agency there.
And he spent the next six years more or less cooking dinner...
...and writing screenplays and taking lunches in Los Angeles...
...and pitching projects and not making movies.
And my partner actually called the agency up and said:
"We'd love to work with Ang Lee.
He's never made a movie before, but we think he's really talented."
And they said, "You can't touch this guy.
He's just way too expensive. He's got development deals here...
...and he's doing a film with so-and-so there.
You can't touch him.
You guys are low-budget independent filmmakers."
And oddly enough, a week later, unbeknownst to any of us...
...including Ang, Ang walked into our office and said:
"Oh, I have a friend who tells me that you make movies cheaply...
...and I've won a screenplay contest in Taiwan.
I have a little bit of money. Can you make a movie with me?"
He had no idea that we'd actually called his agency...
...just a week earlier, asking to work with him.
And within four months, we were in production on his first film...
...a film called Pushing Hands...
...which did spectacularly well in Asia and in particular in Taiwan.
And because of the success in Taiwan of Pushing Hands...
...the financiers of that film wrote us another cheque...
...for, again, a rather small amount of money.
But it was a cheque from which they derived a fantastic return.
That was of course The Wedding Banquet.
And that became, according to Variety...
...the most profitable film, which was always fun because--
The second-most profitable film was of course Jurassic Park.
So we beat out the dinosaurs.
Lindsay first said, you know, "I'm thinking about Ang Lee."
I said, "isn't he desperately foreign?"
Mrs. Bunting! Mrs. Bunting!
And what Lindsay had seen was this extraordinary connection...
...between the sensibilities of Austen...
...and this most extraordinary young director.
At first, it seems like a strange idea. It did to all of us.
We thought, "Well, that's a strange choice to make...
...for an English novel."
But then Lindsay went to meet him.
And he said that he thought we were crazy.
But once he read it, he understood...
...that this really was about things that he cared about deeply.
And he said:
"I feel as though I've been working towards making this movie all my life."
At the end, don't look at her. Just smirk to yourself.
Ang said something very funny. He said:
"Twentieth-century Chinese culture is more similar...
...to the Britain of Jane Austen...
...than British culture is today."
That he's actually in a mental space and a spiritual space...
...that is very, very similar.
So he can make a very direct connection...
...which isn't mediated by centuries of history and interpretation.
It's very direct and very connected.
And therefore probably more emotional than most people could imagine...
...and funnier.
You think of Jane Austen and you think of a classic paperback...
...that occasionally, if forced to, you will have purchased...
...at some point during your pre-college career...
...and perhaps at university.
What Ang brings to it is an eye that says:
"Wait, this is profoundly moving and incredibly funny at the same time."
And that's the particular mix of Ang's films...
...that he brings to this particular motion picture too.
Why me? What do I know about 19th-century England?
But then, I think it's the name of Emma Thompson...
...on top of the cover sheet...
...that made me keep reading the script.
About halfway, I know what they're thinking.
Because it's about matrimony and three sisters...
...family.
Especially the touch of cynical satire...
...a funny-plus-warm-hearted drama.
That's kind of right in my alley.
And I have to say, toward the end, the script got me.
Of course, I didn't make the decision without struggle, you know.
Should I do this or that?
In a way, I feel like bungee jumping: There I go.
Then I talk to them, and, you know, here I am.
And action.
I just thought, "Well, he's perfect to direct this film."
Because it's about family fabric, food, which is such an important thing.
The whole social thing that comes with eating...
...it's something that we all do.
We sit, we socialise, we talk, we eat.
We love what we're eating.
And that's what I love about Eat Drink Man Woman.
And so much detail and so many connections.
So many connections.
And this family environment is incredibly detailed...
...and very, very delicate and intricate.
And Ang himself is a very quiet man, very, very thoughtful.
I mean, he can think so many things just by looking at you.
And so I remember when meeting him for the first time...
...I was very aware that I was really being watched.
I mean, that didn't necessarily make me self-conscious...
...but it was just one of the major initial things...
...that I learned about Ang, was that he really watches...
...and observes so many things, you know.
It's quite amazing.
If it's funny, if I understand...
...you'll see it. I'm sure you'll see it.
I think that's part of my talent, to recognise funny things...
...and be able to express them.
Ang was wonderful about the entrance of men into the story...
...because it's so very female.
You're in this cottage and there's, you know--
They're all sort of sewing endlessly and doing their accounts...
And I remember one day we were doing this shot...
...where Willoughby, who's the dashing young blade...
...comes to visit for the first time.
And these women just turn-- They are potty.
I mean, it's hysterical what happens to them.
They're all talking at once. You know, they don't know what to say.
And the camera was in a particular position.
We were lining up the shot just to go to a certain point.
And so we turned over, we started to do a take...
...and we just carried on.
We went on and on past this point where we were supposed to out.
The camera had just kind of got completely into a corner.
The cameraman was just going:
Because he couldn't contain the shot anymore, you know.
And when Ang finally said cut, he said:
"You know, I just couldn't bear to stop watching.
Because what was so interesting...
...was what was happening in the atmosphere."
Because it was testosterone kind of explodes into this room.
And all these molecules, the whole atmosphere of the room changed...
...because suddenly sex arrived.
Who is reading Shakespeare's sonnets?
- Marianne. - I am.
- Marianne is reading them out to us. - And which are your favourites?
Without a doubt, mine is 116.
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments."
"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds...
...or bends with the remover to remove..."
I think those characters, they are immortal.
I don't know how she did it.
This is a woman living a domestic life all her life.
All those people, there's always Fanny...
...always Elinor, Marianne.
The economic side of society, social side, it all exists.
I don't know how she did it. I'm not a book critic.
But they're very much alive and real to me...
...and I respond to them, try to do my best...
...to adapt to the modern audience's eyes.
I do the best I can.
Sometimes you have to help the audience to appreciate that.
My fabric, my bosom!
Betsy!
The main kind of cultural gap between Ang's methods of working...
...or what he was used to and what we were used to...
...was that in Taiwan, the director is God.
You obey the director, whatever happens.
There is no discussion. He tells you what to do, you do it.
In the U.S. and in the U.K., in particular with material like this...
...you always discuss.
You know, actors will always say:
"Yeah, but if you want to do that, doesn't that mean that?"
"Wouldn't it be good to...?"
And the first time this happened, it was like...
I mean, I didn't even know, because he's so good at hiding things.
I mean, he just doesn't show anything.
He's so absolutely kind of patient and quiet and controlled.
You know, but we didn't realise that this was just not done.
I quite like the way people work here.
It's a group creation. Everybody has something to give.
Although sometimes you hurt the director's ego.
You know, we all have big egos, especially Chinese directors.
We're like:
Dictator.
And they were trained, as a tradition...
...push you to carry more responsibilities.
And actors, they come in and expect you to tell them what to do.
But here, everybody has very strong opinion...
...not only because I'm Chinese here doing English piece.
That's the nature of how they work, in, particularly, theatre.
This country has very strong theatrical history.
Ang tells me that, you know, directing in Taiwan...
...at any point in the day, he can just sit...
...and he'll know that a chair is there for him.
You know, he's a god.
And it's not quite the same here...
...because they're finding a chair for me.
But English love is, like, to do a lot of chat.
And I think there's probably less chat with Chinese actors.
We like to say, "Well, I don't know. I think I might sit over there.
It feels more comfortable, feels more right."
And I think that was surprising to Ang.
But he's absolutely loving it now.
I would say half a year was devoted to simply research.
And I think, again...
...there was never any doubt in our minds...
...and it was one of the conditions both, I think, of Sydney Pollack...
...and Lindsay Doran as producers...
...and of Ang as a director..
...that this was not gonna be a Hollywood production.
Every single member of this crew is British.
Every actor in this film is British. We're shooting in Britain.
This is not done in Orlando studios, you know, with an art department...
...dressing a bunch of interior locations.
In fact, we're shooting it in Jane Austen country.
We're here a few miles from where a great deal of the action...
...in the novel takes place.
Everything about this film is infused...
...with the spirit with which the book was written, as far as we could do it.
And Ang would accept no less.