Biography for
Carina Lau More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

8 December 1964, Suzhou, China

Birth Name

Jialing Liu

Height

5' 5¾" (1.67 m)

Mini Biography

Carina Lau moved to Hong Kong with her family at the age of 14 and at the the time could not speak the local Cantonese and was often teased by other people the "Mainland Girl". She would eventually gave her best effort to learn the language and then was re-accepted at the TVB actors training program when she had improved her speaking ability. It was 1983 the year when she had graduated from the program and launched her acting career as contract basic actress for TVB, and her now boyfriend Tony Leung(Happy Together) was graduated one year ealrier. Her acting career for TVB was limited to playing ornamental parts in series for the first several years and she didn't get a major challenging starring role until the hit series Looking Back in Anger. That series had established her status as a strong leading lady, but she was aiming to abandon the small screen for films.

She had been in tabnoid headlines for her near-marriage romance with a handsome billionaire in the late 80s, and she was considering giving up acting to marry him but the wedding got cancelled the last minute, and Carina was devastated. Shortly after she started dating Tony after partnering to do a stage play called "Happy Lemon Husband". It was I am Sorry (a low-budget dramedy) that first garnered her the HK best actress nomination in 1989, and she had previously been sent out by TVB to do some films but nothing significant enough to turn her into a film star. Since leaving TVB, she had been approached by film jobs consistently. She found the dream role when Wong Kar Wai let her play a sexy and volatile showgirl in Days of Being Wild opposite Leslie Cheung and Maggie Cheung, and she was in the spotlight and became the "It" girl of the year during film festivals and awards. She once told the press that it was WKW who taught her how to bring out the best of her acting skills and how to use body language to convey emotions.

Over the course the 90s, Carina was constantly working mostly on dramas and comedies and had many box office hits. She subsquently chose very daring dramatic roles and she has a reputation for playing troubled women and porstitutes very well. For instance, her bisexual role in Intimates was one of the most challenging roles of her career and it was very provocative that it was entirely accepted by mainstream audiences. Towards the late 90s, she cut reduced her working in films since there was lesser good scripts and the industry was in decline. She even participated in a period dramatic series in Taiwan and a HK theatrical play when films didn't excite her. With more than 60 starring roles in films, TV series and plays, she was not desperate to work just for work, so the recent years she's still one of the highest earning actress in Asia because she's the spokesperson for numerous big fashion and cosmetic labels. It was unfortunate that her five year involement in making the most lavish sci-fi epic 2046 had reduced her to a supporting role. She was frustrated that she didn't know what she was playing since Wong Kar Wai had not issued a script and was working from his head the whole time. Finally, a fellow actor recommended her to read a script called Curiosity Kills the Cat, a low-budget Chinese thriller, and insisted that she should do the film because it was clear that the leading role was perfectly suitable for her and she's never played anything like it before. Her performance garnered her the best reviews of her career. In this film, she turned in a multi-layered and unpredictable performance and for the first time she was willing to be made up to look very middle-aged and unattractive, and she was welling to do 3 takes of paint splattering all over her like Sissy Spacek in Carrie.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Wing Lee

Spouse

Tony Leung Chiu Wai

(21 July 2008 - present)

Trivia

Long-time boyfriend is Tony Leung Chiu Wai (10+ yrs.)

Spokesmodel for Max Factor SK-II skin care products.

Spoke Model for Longines watch since 2003.

Spoke Model for Wanko, a fashion brand in Hong Kong

Hong Kong Best Actress Nominations: I am Sorry (a.k.a. Her life's Lies, 1988), Days of Being Wild (1990), Whorle and Giglo (1991), Intimates (1997), Infernal Affairs 2 (2002).

Taiwan's Golden Horse Best Actress Nomination: Days of Being Wild(1990), Curiousity Kills the Cat (2006).

Awards: Best Actress Winner at the Nantes (France) international film festival for Days of Being Wild (1991). Best Actress Winner at the Hong Kong's Golden Bauhinea Award for her role in Intimates (a.k.a. Self-Combed 1997). Winner of Millenium Actress Award for her role in the theatrical play Red Boat (performed throughout 2000).

Voted by people's choice as the Best Actress of the year for her performance in Curiosity Kills the Cat and the award was hosted by Sina.Com. She accepted the award with much gratitude to the audiences and the director and fellow actor who recommended her to take the role.

Worked on Wong Kar Wai's 2046 for 5 years and had no idea what the film was about, she also admitted that WKW had been one of the best directors in her career and during the making of Days of Being Wild, he bought out the best actress in her.

The first actress to become CEO of Hong Kong's first shopping channel TV Mart.

She insisted on buying and getting her own wardrobe custom designed by long time friend costume/production designer William Cheung Suk Pink for her first Mandarin China produced TV series called The River Flows Eastward. It was reported that she had gathered over one hundred outfits for the show. She also hired him to do design interior for her home.

She was kidnapped and tortured by gangsters in the early 1990s before filming Days of Being Wild. Pictures of her semi-naked in a state of distress from that incident was published on the cover of a Hong Kong magazine more than 10 years later which shocked the entire Hong Kong movie industry. She bravely came out to give her speech to confront the cruel treatment on a much publicized conference, and received much support from her peers and public. That magazine publication was immediately shut down.

She was one of the handful actresses to be earning $1M salary per picture in Hong Kong back in the early 1990's when she used to work on at least 6 movies a year, and in recent years she works on merely one movie a year.

Took dancing lessons and had dental work as her preparation for her participation in Wong Kar Wai's Days Of Being Wild. She was named one of the ten sexiest foreign actors by a Japanese magazine for this film.

Released 3 Mandarin albums between 1994-1996 in Taiwan. She has played a singer in films numerous times.

Named one of the top 20 box office stars of Hong Kong in the past 20 years.

Often worked with boyfriend Tony Leung Chiu Wai since the '80s, but rarely played a couple. Often worked with Tony Leung Kar Fai in the '90s, and played a couple most of the time.

She has starred in two Hong Kong romantic comedies that were remakes or spin-offs of American film and TV series include Whore and Giglo (very similar to Pretty Woman), and Sex and the Beauties (Hong Kong movie version of Sex and the City, and she plays Sarah Jessica Parker's role).

She's often called just "Ka Ling" or "Ka Ling Sister", the sister added at the end of the name is a symbol of diva in Hong Kong. She gets upset when her fans or the press calls her Mrs. Leung, referring her as the wife of Tony Leung even though they denied being married. It was rumored that they are secretly married some years ago.

Took the lead role in Ji Sor (Intimates), one of her most acclaimed films after Anita Mui pulled out to take a supporting role in 18 Springs.

Faye Wong, HK's pop star is one of her best friends and they both played androids and broken hearted women in Wong Kar Wai's 2046.

Her role in Infernal Affairs 2 a supporting role consist of less than 20 minutes of screen time, but she was so powerful and a total scene stealer that she got multiple best actress nominations in HK and China.

Worked with the late Leslie Cheung in Days in Being Wild, Ashes of Time, The Eagle Shooting Heroes, He's the Woman, She's the Man,and Who's the Man, Who's the Woman (cameo).

As of 2007, she owns 4 homes in Hong Kong and China with real estate value worth over $100M. She names her mansion style home in Shouzhou "Ka-Ling Mansion" after her Chinese name.

Personal Quotes

At my age, I don't need to win any awards to prove that I am good or worthy of the jobs that I get offered, and winning awards now wouldn't increase my bankability or validation. Back in the early years of my career, I was always desperate for awards, because I believed they could easily escalate my career and demand in the film industry.

I wasn't born to be a normal person. My life's path is very different from normal people. I am made of three different roles: Woman, Movie Star, and Actress. It's upto you to choose which Carina Lau you like.

On losing her much anticipated Golden Horse Best Actress Award (11-2006): There are two different groups of people in the world. There is the ones that are very lucky and happened to be at the right place at the right time, and there is the ones that have to work extremely hard but a lack of luck often prevents them to win. I belong to the latter...I have no doubt about my own performance just because I have not won.

Where Are They Now

(February 2007) Working on commercials, and waiting to start on the new Stanley Kwan movie called Green Mansion.

(February 2007) She runs her night club/bar called Muse in Shanghai. She's on vacation in her hometown in China where she has a new mansion-like home.

(November 2007) After becoming the first HK actress to win China's most prestigious Golden Rooster Award for her work in Curiosity Kills the Cat, she's busy doing commercial work include her long term campaign for SK-II Cosmetics. She says that she has become rather picky about film work because she's played all kinds of roles and every type of films.

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