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The Action Star's Life Is Very Short. Back In Asia, I Can Do Whatever I Want To Do. I'm The Producer, I'm The Director, I Can Do So Many Things, But In Hollywood Any Time I Present A Script They Say: "no, No, No, Rush Hour 3, Rush Hour 4."

-Jackie Chan

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The Action Star's Life

Jackie Chan

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The Action Star's Life Is Very Short. Back In Asia, I Can Do Whatever I Want To Do. I'm The Producer, I'm The Director, I Can Do So Many Things, But In Hollywood Any Time I Present A Script They Say: "no, No, No, Rush Hour 3, Rush Hour 4."

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Every Time I Make An American Film I Just Trust The American Director And American Writer. Myself, I Would Never Make This Kind Of Film. For Me, Those Kinds Of Films Are Ridiculous. They Don't Make Sense.

If I Need To Buy A Tv, I'll Definitely Buy A Japanese Tv. A Chinese Tv Might Explode.

Acting Keeps Me Young! I Love That The Fans Like This Kind Of Action And As Long As They Want Me I'll Continue To Do It.

In The Real World, Children Love Me.

Honestly, Every Movie I Do In America, The Only Challenge For Me Is English. I've Done Everything Already, For Me It's Pretty Easy. Only The English.

I Really Hope Someday In Hollywood, Some Producer Or Director Will Hire Me Only To Do Drama.

I Will Make Action Movies, I Think, For A Few More Years, Another Five Years.

I Don't Want To Be An Action Star, An Action Star's Life Is So Short. I Want My Life To Get Longer, I Want My Career To Get Longer.

When I Am Making A Film, I Know What To Do In Front Of A Camera. What Frightens Me Are The Scenes With Dialogue. Sometime They Really Want Me To Speak Perfectly And I Don't Like That.

I Love Wushu A Lot And I Would Love To See It Included In Future Olympic Games.

Of Course I Get Hurt.

Being Still And Doing Nothing Are Two Completely Different Things

I Want To Show Audiences I Can Act.

Why Did I Become Jackie Chan? Mostly Because I Work Very Hard. When People Were Sleeping, I Was Still Training.

My Dream Is To Continue Filming Until My Body Tells Me To Stop.

Most Of The Time I'm Not Even Working, I'm Just Helping People, Because I Feel That I Am Too Lucky. If There Really Is A God, Then He Really Looks After Me. All These Years He's Taken Care Of Me, My Career Keeps Getting Better And Better. Whatever I Want Just Seems To Come. And It Keeps Coming. So I Promised Myself That I Have To Pay For This, Payback Society. So This Is Why I Started My Jackie Chan Foundation To Help Children And Sick Kids And People In Hospitals.

One Thing We Haven't Mentioned Is Something Everyone Should Understand Very Clearly. Look At The Budget That Was Invested In 'avatar': Who In China Has That Kind Of Money To Spend On Making A Movie? So We As Chinese Filmmakers Should Work Together To Make Chinese Movies That Can Compete As Best We Can For Chinese Audiences, Not Make Lousy Movies, But Make The Best We Can For That Audience. Concentrate The Money, The Talent We Have On Making Good Movies [for China].

When I Work I Do It From My Heart. And My Heart Is That I Bring Love To The World. When I Travel Around The World I Bring My Love. I Bring So Much Love In My Heart. I Hope You Can Feel That.

I Am The Olympic Ambassador. I Always Promote Olympics. I Just Want To Say, Olympics Is Olympics. [you] Cannot Mix With Politics. Olympics For Me Is Love, Peace, [being] United.

One Thing I Did Pick Up From Cannonball Run Was The Use Of Bloopers And Outtakes Under The Final Credits, Which I've Done In All My Movies Since.

Everyone Is Saying That I'm Retiring, But I Want To Solemnly Declare, That I Don't Want To Retire, I Just Want To Do Things A Bit Less Dangerous To My Body, Less Dangerous Action.

Life Will Knock Us Down, But We Can Choose Whether Or Not To Stand Back Up.

Life Knocks You Down

Olympics For Me Is Love, Peace, United.

Officials Of Governments That Use Or Produce Landmines Should Be Forced To See The Reality Of How Landmines Hurt People And Make Them Suffer, Because This Would Surely Make Them Stop.

Do Not Let Circumstances Control You. You Change Your Circumstances.

Self Discipline

May We All Co-operate And Join This War On Pirates.

In The Past When I Was In Hollywood, I Was Like A Dog. I Felt Humiliated. My English Was Not Good. People Would Even Ask Me 'jackie Who?'.

I Make American Films For American Audiences And Asian Films For Asian Audiences.

I Only Want My Work To Make People Happy.

When I Came To Hollywood, I Spoke No English - Except Nobody Bullied Me. Every Day, I Had Nothing To Do Except Training In English, To Keep Talking.

My Wish Is To Bring My Heroes To The Big Screen, And Many Of Them Have Already Appeared In My Films.

After All Those Years In Asia, I Don't Have To Do Promotion Anymore. We Just Release A Jackie Chan Movie And - Boom! - People Go.

When I Go Out, People Look At Me With A Puzzled Expression On Their Faces Thinking, "you're Jackie Chan?". When People Stare At Me, It Makes Me Uncomfortable. More And More I Find That I Just Stay In My Hotel When I Am Working.

In America There's No Way I Can Make The Kind Of Movie I Like To Make.

Fifteen Years Ago, I Really Give Up American Market.

Money For Me Today Does Not Really Matter.

More Understand China, Then More People Will Have Interest In China And More People Will Come To China To Visit Us Because I Am A Tourist Ambassador.

I'm Crazy, But I'm Not Stupid.

Sometimes, I'm Very Embarrassed.

Stigma Hurts. Because Of Aids, Children Are Bullied, Isolated And Shut Out Of School. They Are Missing Out On Education. They Are Missing Out On Medicines. Children Are Missing Your Love, Care And Protection. Join Me. And Become A Stigma Buster. Unite For Children Unite Against Aids

Making A Hollywood Film You Don't Have A Very Big Movie Because They Have A Safety Captain And Insurance People On The Set. They Have To Check First. 'don't Do It. Let Me Check. Make Sure Everything Is Safe.'

Hollywood Films

I'm Not Sure If It's Good To Have Freedom Or Not. I'm Really Confused Now.

We Live Now In A Global Village And We Are In One Single Family. It's Our Responsibility To Bring Friendship And Love From All Different Places Around The World And To Live Together In Peace.

If One Does Not Attach Himself To People And Desires, Never Shall His Heart Be Broken. But Then, Does He Ever Truly Live?

I Hope I Can Make Some Hollywood-type Action Films Like 'batman' Or 'spiderman', Action Films Like That. With Some Wire Work, Maybe Wearing A Mask. Like That.

I'm Good For Some Things, Bad For A Lot Of Things.

I Know That Eventually, I'll Have To Change My Life And My Career, But I've Got A Lot Of Good Years Left In Me Yet.

Changing My Life

I Just Want People To Remember Me Like I Remember Buster Keaton. When They Talk About Buster Keaton Or Gene Kelly, People Say, 'ah Yes, They Good.' Maybe One Day, They Remember Jackie Chan That Way.

I Am Really, Really Tired.

I Think As A Celebrity, We Have To Teach The Young Generation How To Speak With The Old Generation.

Young Generation

When You Are Learning About A Martial Art, It Is About Respect.

I Want To Build Up My Philosophy... My Philosophy With Kung Fu Is To Respect People.

Actor's Life Is Very Long.

Even During The Promotion I Told People That I Didn't Like Rush Hour. The Jokes I Didn't Understand And The Fighting, Compared To My Hong Kong Films Was Terrible. A Lot Of People Didn't Like It. But Mostly People Did Like It, They Really Liked It. Rush Hour Really Brought Me To The American Family Audience.

American Movies Show You How To Fight And Break Armsand Necks. I Want To Make The Action In My Movies Like Dancing.

I Now Have Two Different Audiences. There's The One That Has Been Watching My Action Films For 20 Years, And The American Family Audience. American Jokes, Less Fighting.

First, There Are Many Who Can Fight, But They're Small In Stature; Zhang Lanxin Is 177 Cm [5'9"+] Tall, With Very Long Hands And Legs, And Very Quick. In The Scenes, I Tried To Show All Of Her Special Strengths And Qualities. Plus, Zhang Lanxin Has Extraordinary Staying Power: It Was Only Yesterday At The Airport That I Saw Her Cell Phone Photos From The Hospital Where She Was Having Blood Clots In Her Knee Being Cleared Up, And I Hadn't Known Till Then That She Had This Problem.

The Action Star's Life Is Very Short. Back In Asia, I Can Do Whatever I Want To Do. I'm The Producer, I'm The Director, I Can Do So Many Things, But In Hollywood Any Time I Present A Script They Say: "no, No, No, Rush Hour 3, Rush Hour 4."

The Ads All Call Me Fearless, But That's Just Publicity. Anyone Who Thinks I'm Not Scared Out Of My Mind Whenever I Do One Of My Stunts Is Crazier Than I Am.

Coffee Is A Language In Itself.

In My View, Zhang Lanxin Is One Of Our Best Female Martial Artists, And I Can't Rate Her Highly Enough.

Some People Call Police Story The Greatest Action Film Of All Time, And While I Have To Be Humble And Say That I Disagree, It's Definitely The Favorite Action Film I've Ever Made.

We Learn Martial Arts As Helping Weakness. You Never Fight For People To Get Hurt. You're Always Helping People.

Sometimes You Think The Movie Is Good And Boom! Sometimes You Think It's No Good. Baam! The Movie Business Is A Big Gamble. You Never Know.

Martial Arts Is Not For Hurting People, It's For Protecting People.

I Want To Be In 'avatar'. I Want Somebody To Hire Me To Be Superman, A Chinese Superman Or Spider-man.

Do You Understand The Words That Are Coming Out Of My Mouth?

In Every Movie I Do Have A Dialogue.

My Skull, My Eyes, My Nose Three Times, My Jaw, My Shoulder, My Chest, Two Fingers, A Knee, Everything From The Top Of My Head To The Bottom Of My Feet. Listing What Body Parts He Has Broken

Most Of The Time, I'm Not Even Working; I'm Just Helping People, Because I Feel That I Am Too Lucky.

Family Is Not Who's Blood Is In You, Is Who You Love And Who Loves You

I Sometimes Just Don't Like To See The Ultimate Fighting. I Just Find It, As A Martial Artist, I Just Find It Too Violent.

I Know I Have To Run 20 More Minutes If I Eat Ice Cream. Basically, I Eat Everything, But I Just Do More Training.

I Asked Each If [yao Xingtong And Zhang Lanxin] Was Afraid Of Heights. Each Said No, And Although They Had Never Had The Action Movie Experience They Were Willing To Be Trained. Then I Asked If They Could Swim, And Each Said Yes, But She (gestures Toward Yx) Is Better. She Said, I Can Also Dive, In Fact I Once Won A Diving Championship In An International Competition. Then She Said, "but Big Brother, I'm Not Very Strong," And I Said That's All Right.

I Allowed Myself To Be Bullied Because I Was Scared And Didn't Know How To Defend Myself. I Was Bullied Until I Prevented A New Student From Being Bullied. By Standing Up For Him, I Learned To Stand Up For Myself.

The Life Of An Action Star Is Very Short. I Want To Be An Actor Like Robert De Niro , Like Dustin Hoffman Or Clint Eastwood Who In Their 70s Or 80s Can Still Act.

I Do Small Things. I Try To Do Good Things Every Day.

Don't Try To Be Like Jackie. There Is Only One Jackie. Study Computers Instead.

I Went By Myself To Hollywood, I Spoke No English, Every Day I Had To Go To School.

My Schedule Goes: Wake Up, Running, Exercise, Downstairs, Running Shoes Off, Then To The Shower. That's The Jackie Chan Diary.

As A Father, I Always Want My Son To Be Perfect. When He Was Young, I Tried To Train Him In Martial Arts, But He Said, 'i Don't Want To Become Like Bruce Lee's Son, With Everybody Telling Me How Good My Father Was.' I Just Think My Son Is Too Lazy.

I Think Every Young Child Can Learn Through Any Martial Art. They Would Then Learn To Respect Their Life, Respect Their Parents, Respect Their Country, And Respect The Whole World.

If We're Not Being Controlled, We'll Just Do What We Want.

I Hope Next Time When We Meet, We Won't Be Fighting Each Other. Instead We Will Be Drinking Tea Together.

I Hate Interviews - But You Have To Do Them.

No Matter How Much More I Practice, My English Will Never Be Perfect. If It Is Really Terrible, I'll Correct It, But Otherwise, I Do It My Jackie Chan Way.

The Children Right Now, The Young Children, Everybody Should Go To A Martial Arts School. Why? Because As Soon As They Go To A Martial Arts School, They Learn Discipline.

Being A Stunt Coordinator, I Have To Take Care Not Only Of Myself But I Have To Make Sure Everyone Is Safe.

For Me The Greatest Source Of Income Is Still Movies. Nothing - Stocks, Financial Speculation, Real Estate Speculation Or Businesses - Makes More Money For Me Than Making Movies.

When I Look At Young Kids Today I Just Don't Believe It, Parents Take Away The Gameboy And They're Suicidal. They Cannot Take The Pressure.

I Just Couldn't Stop Thinking About What Landmines Are Doing To People Here. I Told People - My Friends - About It, But It Was Just Not Enough. I Knew I Had To Do More.

Before I Do A Stunt, I Have To Make Sure It Is Safe.

You Don't Need A Reason To Be Nice To Someone.

When I Was A Young Stunt Guy The Director Would Say: "you're Useless..." But I Wanted To Be The Best, I Wanted To Be A Super Stunt Guy. That's How I Built Myself, Because Of Martial Arts And Everything.

When Life Knocks You Down, You Can Choose To Get Back Up.

Life Knocks You Down

It Only Hurts When I'm Not Laughing.

I Hate Violence, Yes I Do. It's Kind Of A Dilemma, Huh?.

The Movie Business Is A Big Gamble.

Actually, The Few Good Chinese Movies That Foreign Countries Choose To Import Are Zhang Yimou's, And Mine, A Few Directors, But How Many Movies Can We Make In A Year? We Can Only Make A Few, While They Turn Them Out Continuously.

American Stuntmen Are Smart - They Think About Safety. When They Do A Jump In A Car, They Calculate Everything: The Speed, The Distance... But In Hong Kong, We Don't Know How To Count. Everything We Do Is A Guess. If You've Got The Guts, You Do It. All Of My Stuntmen Have Gotten Hurt.

Every Time I Make American Film I Just Trust American Directors And American Writers.

Sometimes I Do Need To Go To Karaoke, Sometimes I Need To Relax.

As One Tale Ends, So Another Begins.

Very Difficult To Understand American Audience, What They Like, What They Don't Like. Some Movie I Like Very Much, It Doesn't Work. Some Movie I Don't Like, It Gets Big Box Office. Very Difficult.

I Never Wanted To Be The Next Bruce Lee. I Just Wanted To Be The First Jackie Chan.

When I Was Young I Trained A Lot. I Trained My Mind, I Trained My Eyes, Trained My Thinking, How To Help People. And It Trained Me How To Deal With Pressure.

I Play A Nobody In Japan.

I Loved Cowboy Movies When I Was A Kid. When I Was Five Years Old, I Was Already Wearing A Cowboy Hat And Suit. When I Grew Up, I Knew John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Kirk Douglas And So On.

Sometimes It Takes Only One Act Of Kindness And Caring To Change A Person's Life.

Pain Is My Daily Routine. As Long As I Don't Go To The Hospital, It's Nothing For Me.

I've Been Preparing [chinese Zodiac] For Seven Years, Spent Seven Years On Writing The Script, Spent Over A Year On Filming It.

I'm Very Pessimistic About That, No Matter How Hard We May Try. The Chinese Market Is Huge, But Out Of Last Year's $2 Billion Box Office, $1.8 Billion Was Taken In By Foreign Movies, And Just $200 Million By Our Own Movies, No Matter How Much We Have Learned Of Their Techniques, Or Their Good Practices. The Hollywood Movies Imported Into China Are All Good Movies; Does The U.s. Make Lousy Movies? Yes, Too Many Lousy Movies, But The Imports Are Good Films, So How Can They Not Be Box Office Hits? They're All Hits.

When I Try To Speak Perfectly Then I Am Not Jackie Chan Anymore. Some Words Sound Like I Am Trying Too Hard. The Whole Thing Is Not Me.

When I'm In Meetings Until 5am And Then Have To Get Up Two Hours Later For Filming, Sometimes I Ask Myself 'why?'

Speaking English Is Like Tongue-twist For Me. I Can Speak Each Word Perfect, But Then You Have To String Them Together Like, 'blah, Blah, Blah.' That's When I Get Crazy.

Bruce Lee Brought The Martial Arts Movie To The Attention Of The World - And Without Him, I Don't Think That Anyone Would Have Ever Heard Of Jackie Chan.

Nothing Makes Me More Determined To Succeed Than Someone Telling Me Something's Impossible.

Determined To Succeed

The Authorities Should Stipulate What Issues People Can Protest Over And On What Issues It Is Not Allowed.

Jackie Chan Is A Myth.

Besides Entertainment And Action, I Want To Educate. You Know, As A Producer Or Director, We Do Have A Responsibility To Society.

I've Seen Too Many Ups And Downs In The Movie Industry.

The Best Fights Are The Ones We Avoid.

It Is Totally Different Making Films In The East Than In The West. In The East, I Make My Own Jackie Chan Films, And It's Like My Family. Sometimes I Pick Up The Camera Because I Choreograph All The Fighting Scenes, Even When I'm Not Fighting. I Don't Have My Own Chair. I Just Sit On The Set With Everybody.

In The Past Decade, There Have Been A Lot Of Friends Or Directors, Either Gossiping Or Telling Me Directly, "what You're Doing Now Is The Right Thing, Your Main Concern Should Be Taking Care Of Yourself, And Not Doing Action At Your Age." Well, After First Feeling Angry, I'd Think, To Be Honest, I Really Am Older. So I Thought, All Right, But Before I Retire I'd Like To Make One Last Major Action Film, One Good One.

Martial Arts Is For Defense. It's Not For Attacking. So When People Are Fighting, Always, Always, Defend.

I Think The Family Movie Is Very Important To Everybody Right Now.

Kung Fu Lives In Everything We Do. It Lives In How We Put On A Jacket And How We Take Off A Jacket. It Lives In How We Treat People. Everything Is Kung Fu.

Since The Child Knew His Parents Would Give In, He Tried The Same Trick Again And Again.

I Have A Metal Plate In My Head, And Can Pop My Shoulder And Pop It Back.

If You're Too Free, You're Like The Way Hong Kong Is Now. It's Very Chaotic.

Anyone Can Be A Superman, But Nobody Can Be Jackie Chan.

Cinema Reflects Culture And There Is No Harm In Adapting Technology, But Not At The Cost Of Losing Your Originality.

China Produces 600 Movies In A Year, Of Which 3 Or 4 Go Abroad, While Of The Several Hundred They Make, We Only Bring In 50. It's 50 Now, But That Could Be Expanded Later On.

I Want To Really Stress This, I Am A Director, An Actor, Producer, Action Choreographer, And I'm Also An Investor.

When I Got Depressed, I Watched Bruce Lee Movies. I Learned Everything From Bruce Lee.

I'm Tired Of Fighting. I've Always Known That I Can't Be An Action Star All My Life.

I Thought I Should Forget Hollywood And Go Back To Hong Kong. I'm So Lucky That Finally Hollywood Accepts My Comedy Fighting.

I Want To Make People Laugh And I Want To Try To Encourage World Peace.

I Love Animals. When I Was Young, I Had Two St. Bernards, I Still Have A Dog, I Have A Lot Of Cats In My Company. My Wife Always Says, "you Spend A Lot Of Money On Animals. More Than Even Me!"

Sometimes I'd Like To Play The Bad Guy And Sometimes I'd Like To Die In A Movie.

I'm Sure That Zhang Lanxin Could Be An Outstanding Action Movie Actress. For One Thing, She Wouldn't Require A Stand-in. As For Yao Xingtong, She Might Be An Excellent Action Performer In Her Next Life.

I Want To Play A Fireman And A Spy. I Want To Learn Special Effects.

You Cannot Mix Sports With Politics.

When I'm Making An American Film, It's More Safe Because There Are So Many People On The Set To Watch Me. Whatever I Do, They Say, 'what Are You Doing!? Tell Me First!' There Are So Many Restrictions.

We Have To Do What We Can To Help Wherever And Whenever It Is Possible For Us To Help.

Back In The Bruce Lee Era, And In My Era, Kung-fu Stirred Up A Kind Of Frenzy, And Many People Were Learning Martial Arts From Us. But About A Decade Ago, Hollywood Began Bringing In A Number Of Our Action Choreographers, Including Two From My Own Stunt Crew, Where They Became Martial Arts Directors. Now, A Decade Later, Hollywood Has Learned It All, So When You Look At The Action Films They're Making Now, They All Use Our Action, Our Martial Arts, And Then Add To That Their Own Technology Which Is Ten Times Better Than Ours, And It Has To Leave Us Dumbfounded: How Did They Film That?

Every Country When They Have Olympics, A Lot Of People Come Out Opposed.

A Lot Of People Ask Me When I Do A Stunt, 'jackie, Are You Scared?' Of Course I'm Scared. I'm Not Superman.

My Affection For Taiwan... Is Witnessed By Everyone. My Wife Is Taiwanese And I Am A Son-in-law Of Taiwan. I Am Half Taiwanese.

When I Was Young I Didn't Care About Education, Just Money And Box Office.

The Kids Never Listen To You, Especially The Youngest Ones.

I'm Gradually Beginning To Feel That We Chinese Need To Be Controlled. If We're Not Being Controlled, We'll Just Do What We Want.

Chinese People Need To Be Controlled; Otherwise, They Will Do Whatever They Want.

I Do Small Things. I Try To Do Good Things Every Day. If Everyone Does Some Good, Think Of What A Good World This Will Be.

I Really Like To Be By Myself And If I Do Go Out To Look Around, I Dress In Jeans. My Secretary Is Constantly Telling Me To Dress Up, Shave And Look Your Best Because People Know You. That Bothers Me. I Just Want To Be Natural.

When I Make A Film - I Direct My Own Film, I Write My Own Script - That's What I Want To Hear From The Audience. 'oh, Thank You, Jackie!'

I Want To Be An Asian Robert De Niro.

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