It's both funny and sad which seem to me to be the two basic ingredients of good comedy.

And the sad truth is that nobody wants me to write comedy. The Exorcist not only ended that career it expunged all memory of its existence.

I had to choose I'd be so sad. They are flip sides of the same coin. I love both comedy and drama.

My comedy is for children from three to 93. You do need a slightly childish sense of humour and if you haven't got that it's very sad.

I want to do all kinds of things. I want to do some comedy. I'd love to do a romantic comedy and I'd love to do some period pieces with classical text. I'd love somebody to cast me as Macbeth but for a film. I just want to be all over the place.

It's harder and harder to make a well-done romantic comedy these days because the conventions have been so played out.

In the West audiences think I am a stereotyped action star or that I always play hitmen or killers. But in Hong Kong I did a lot of comedy many dramatic films and most of all romantic roles lots of love stories. I was like a romance novel hero.

With While You Were Sleeping it was so much fun and such a Cinderella story that I didn't want to do another romantic comedy. I wanted to do the opposite.

I had to trick people into giving me money for my first film. Making a romantic comedy is easier and more expected from a woman than it is to make a drama about a Japanese warrior.

I love romantic comedy but I think you have to have another idea that you're chasing along with romantic comedy.