Ziyi Zhang: up until now, she's kicked, sliced, and flown her way through her remarkable film performances. But for her next chapter, she's out to pulvernize audiences on entirely different level

Six years after her debut in Zhang Yimou's The Road Home (1999), Ziyi Zhang has made an international name for herself thanks to her high-flying, sword-wielding performances in films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Hero (2002), and House of Flying Daggers. Collectively these films helped to raise the worldwide prominence of the martial-arts genre, not to mention the actress's own profile. But as Zhang's dramatic, scene-stealing turn in Wong Kar Wai's recent 2046 suggests, or as her much-anticipated performance in the forthcoming Memoirs of a Geisha seems likely to confirm, the actress has more in her arsenal than just physical grace and lightning quick moves. Here she goes head-to-head with someone who knows a thing or two about delivering an emotional wallop onscreen--actress Natalie Portman.

NATALIE PORTMAN: I understand you're learning English.

ZIYI ZHANG: Yeah, I go to school for five hours a day. When I was in college in China we learned English, but it was just what the kids learn--we didn't really know how to speak.

NP: Do you have a favorite word?

ZZ: The swear words! [both laugh] Today in class I said something like, "What the hell?!" and the teacher said, "Oh, you're really getting into it!" And we have this class called ... e-e-idim?

NP: Oh, idioms!

ZZ: Yeah, idioms--I love to learn those, but it's hard to figure them out.

NP: Do you have a favorite idiom?

ZZ: "Drive me on the wall" [both laugh]--learning English is driving me on the wall!

NP: That's great. So tell me, if I were to go to China, where should I go?

ZZ: You have to go to Beijing. There are so many good things to see, like the Imperial Palace, the Great Wall, the Summer Palace where the famous empress lived. China is developing and changing very fast--I can go home to Beijing after being gone for two months and not know the roads anymore.

NP: How has life changed there?

ZZ: I think the big political picture is better than it was 10 years ago. Also, people have more money, so they can see movies or buy things.

NP: I read that most people in China watch movies at home more than in the theater.

ZZ: I think people are getting more used to going to movie theaters, but the big market in China is TV. People love to stay home--they're couch tomatoes.

NP: Couch potatoes! [both laugh] And you've never done TV there?

ZZ: No. I don't know why. I enjoy TV. But I only do one movie a year. There are not many good scripts, and I just try to pick the right one and do challenging things I've never done before.

NP: What kind of projects do you prefer?

ZZ: I love tragedy--I love drama and serious stories. I don't like action so much, even though I've done a lot. [laughs]

NP: When I was in school I took a class with Cornel West, who's this amazing African-American Studies professor, and he would say that in America there's this sort of racism against Asians where they say, "Oh, you know, they all look alike." He believed the reason is that Americans don't take enough time to look. Yet that's actually proved beneficial because you can play someone who's Japanese, as you do in Memoirs of a Geisha.

ZZ: But I know the difference, and because I do I have to get the details from the different cultures right. Regardless of whether you're Chinese or Japanese or whatever, when you're playing Japanese, especially a geisha, because they have so many rules in that world and it's so mysterious, you have to learn the proper etiquette, like exactly how to sit.

NP: So, what did you do to prepare?

ZZ: We had very intense training for two months, and we rehearsed every single scene before we started shooting. I have a solo dance performance in the movie, so I had to learn a special dance called the "Winter Dance." It's like a little theater within the theater. It's quite dramatic. I had to dance in like 12-inch platform shoes. The first time I saw the shoes I thought maybe they were a prop. And then they told me, "You have to dance in them." I said, "No way!" [Portman laughs] But I got used to it.

NP: I understand you started studying dance when you were 11. What kinds of dance did you study?

ZZ: Folk dances. [In China] we have 56 different minorities, and each group has its own dances, music, and instruments, so I studied those.

NP: And why did you choose dance?

ZZ: I don't know. [both laugh] I was young, my teacher took me to the dance school, and I passed the exam. I didn't know what that meant, but I remember my parents were ecstatic and had a big party and invited my teacher. I didn't know it meant I would become a professional dancer--all I knew was I couldn't live with my parents anymore because it was a boarding school. It helped me become very independent, and to learn discipline because of all the physical training. So now when I'm working and feel tired, I can still keep going.

NP: You've obviously worked hard your whole life. How do you relax?

ZZ: I love to go to see movies. I love to stay home and just clean my room. [Portman giggles]