By Fred Topel | Image property of Sony Pictures Classics.
For her first major acting role, Xu Jiao had quite a task. Not only would she work with a CGI character in CJ7, but she would be playing a boy. Stephen Chow cast Xu as Dicky, his son, in the film.
Xu Jiao Crossdresses for CJ7
"There's naturally a certain level of difficulty when you are approaching a different gender role, especially for someone like me that lacks experience in acting," said Xu through a translator. "This is my first feature film so there were definitely challenges there. I think a lot of these challenges have to do with the very unique personality of boys versus girls. Girls are typically more quiet and kind of refined whereas boys can be rowdy and coarse and a little rougher around the edges. But I also have my kind of more wild side and I can be very lively and curious about things, so I try to tap into that side of my personality. As for the future, I really hope that I'll have some opportunities to play girl roles next time."
Xu relied mostly on instinct to play Dicky, not on the boys she knew. "There is a big brother at home [which is probably a cousin, not a real brother,] that I spent a lot of time with but his personality is very different than Dicky in the film," so I didn't really learn much from him in terms of the role."
CJ7
CJ7
CJ7
CJ7
Some kids might make fun of girls who dress up as boys, but since it was for a Stephen Chow movie, everyone thought Xu Jiao was pretty cool. "When I first got the role, I think a lot of my friends really admired this and thought it was a great thing. They all gave me congratulations and they thought this was a wonderful experience. But none of them made fun of me or anything. That never really happened. Nobody was really jealous in a negative way. We're really great friends and they've all been very, very nice to the whole thing."
CJ7 opens to theaters on March 7th.
For the trailer, poster and more movie info, go to the CJ7 Movie Page.
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