Jolin: Yahoo Interview (excerpt)

Jolin did an interview for Yahoo, we have some excerpts of it!!

[(This is a Q&A session with questions from netizens)

Q: Even though Jolin is going into a mature woman phase, but what new things would you want to do after 30? If there was to be a Taiwanese version of "Sex and The City, would you be willing to act in it? Which character would you want to be?
A: I don't have any special plans of what I'll do because I feel like life needs to be filled with surprises to be interesting.
When I first debuted, I wasn't really focused on my performances. It was up till I graduated with "Magic" and onwards that I really started to focus and discovered that I really liked performing. It was about 2-3 years ago that after working with so many professional people that I really started to have my own way of thinking, so I'm still slowly trying everything out.

I think that something that really makes me different from other artists is the fact I change a lot and I work extremely hard! I also have some debates over me with a lot of liking me and a lot of people not liking me, but I've never thought why those people don't like me because I just can't think of it.

The one person that I've always admired in Madonna because she has that kind of drive and confidence with her music and performance style unique from everyone else. I'm still different from her because she tends to cuss, but with my fanbase being from kids in kindergarten to elementary school, so I'm not able to let loose like her. I think that she has truly made me feel the style of "I am the queen", but I don't need that. I just need for myself to be happy and that's all. I don't want people to think that I want to be an empress, and my nature has never been that kind of an attitude and I can't fake that.

If people wanted me to act in Sexy and The City, I think that most women would want to act as Carrie because of the many pretty outfits and shoes, but I think I like Samantha the best. She's very energetic, but she's too energetic in the sexual way, so I don't think I can be like that (laughs). But I think out of the 4 characters in Sex and The City, I admire her the most.

Even though she has dated a lot of men, but she has never felt fake to women. She's a publicist too and I think this profession needs a very good mind and you have to talk a lot which is something that I lack, so I would want to act this part as long as there's not so many sex scenes!

Compared to TV, I'm more interested in movies, but I still need to see the script fits me or not! I'm not able to act every part, so I will probably need to look at it first and if there's a writing team that will actually write something for me.

To be honest, I'm not really fit for the female character with a lot of power. I think I can be like Angelina Jolie in "Tomb Raider" and the other one is like the pretty blonde in "Legally Blonde" walking a little dog on the street and feel like I'm really pretty kind of comedy.

Q: Every time Jolin releases an album, some themes are very trendy, so I was wondering where does your inspiration come from? Out of the country? From your team?

A: Every one of my albums has a lot of my ideas in it, but the hardest thing when you're making an album is the creativity that you provide for the production and design of this album and you have a lot of professional people by your side that will make those wishes come true.

When speaking about inspiration, I really don't know where I get it. Even if you give me some things for inspiration, I probably won't feel a thing. It's just that inspiration just suddenly comes out of nowhere sometimes and I would say "Yes! I want that! It's just like that" and I'll go make it come true.

Like in "Honey Trap", I thought that I wanted to dance "voguing". I didn't see anyone dance it or because it's trendy that I have to dance it. For example, like the album cover, I thought about shooting it near a fountain because I've never done that and I wanted to try it. I also wanted to show my forehead just because I haven't shown it in a long time. As long as I think something fits me, then I will want to try it out.

But I'm not doing these things to start a trend. Everything I'm doing right now are things that I personally want to do. If I painted my nails a certain way today, I'm not doing it so that everyone will have the same nails as me. I'm not trying to be creative to make everyone wear the same thing as me.

I think that as a celebrity, you have to have your own attitude. You have to try and understand what it is that you want to share with everyone. Some people have said that my style and dance moves overpowers my songs and the production behind it, but I think that if you didn't have music, then the style and the dance moves won't be there.

Q:You have inspired many young ladies who look upon you and want to be like you. How would you advise them to go about doing it to be as successful as you are now?

I feel like you have to go do what you like and keep learning, but learning isn't you to end up doing some big thing.

Like if you were to complete a puzzle and something this small will let you slowly have a sense of accomplishment. I often think that if someone asked me what kind of talent and strong point do you have that I won't be able to answer it.

But "I can cook rice" and this is a kind of talent! I remembered that I read a motivational book and it said "you have to ask yourself often and understand yourself more". Maybe my fans really do understand me, but they don't understand themselves. There are times when I don't really understand myself and I'm not sure what my strong points are? I only know what my bad qualities are and I will look only at them which I think isn't right.

A lot of people will say "my arms are fat, my eyes are too small, my nose is flat", but you have to change your point of view and maybe you will discover that your face shape is very pretty like in the book "Secret", you have to admire yourself.

So you have to start with a positive point of view, so people that don't have a lot of self-confidence need to start and checking themselves out everyday and what things did you accomplish today, the clothes I'm wearing are very pretty today, I feel like I have a lot of talent and these things are very important! Then you have to go challenge yourself or learn new things. You have to conquer it, then you can conquer yourself and you will slowly have the "Jolin Tsai spirit".

Q:If you didn't enter the entertainment industry, what would you want to do? Or if you were to get out of the industry, what would you want to do?
A: I think that I would first finish college and if I discovered that I have a lot of interest in the English major, then I would continue to study it. I first thought about becoming an interpreter because I heard in my college's translation institute that it was very hard to get in, so I would have wanted to try and challenge it.

I think that literature is something that really attracted me and translating to Chinese is a very hard thing and you can help a lot of people. I personally feel like interpreting is a really unbelievable talent and if I didn't enter the industry, I would have wanted to try it out in that institute.

If I really did try hard, then I probably could have became an interpreter in court (laughs loudly_! Or I could have become a diplomat, or work for a publishing company.

Actually, when my major was English, I really started to get interesting in Greek mythology and background of those myths. They especially attracted me, and then I started to get interested in the Bible and well my school was a Catholic school, so the Bible had to be studied.

But I really didn't have any interest towards Shakespeare and I didn't have a deep understanding of him. If people thought about English majors before, they would ask me "Do you guys study Shakespeare?" I would just feel yeah.....I'm not familiar with him. Shakespeare is more famous for putting love as the main theme of his stories, but I like things with history as the background like Greek and Roman myths.

You can have more room for imagination when it comes to myths because you can't see them, so you have imagine a background for it. Things like this usually have more of a debate side to them like the Bible.

I was a bit busy during my college years like I would be doing my homework and then I had to go somewhere for the company, so I didn't really have much of a college life. When I went on the show "University" and everyone was chatting about their college life, I realized that I didn't have much to share and it other than eating in the cafeteria and hanging out with friends on Christmas, I didn't have many clubs, so I'm a bit sad about it! and very regretful!

But to be a good celebrity, hard work is a must. I feel like I'm special in that I really like challenges. I like to try new things out, so I hate being the same for a long time. This is what has let my performances become very full of power. I feel like every celebrity work hard, but I won't ever say that I'm the best, because my personality is that I like to see myself grow and see me learning new things. I think this is the reason why I feel very happy.

If I really did get out of the entertainment industry, I will like to continue with my nail polish career! It's because nail polishes is a very addicting thing to me since I was about 10 and I just love to experiment with them. I don't know why, I just like to observe other people and see what colors and designs they have.

Other than performing, I just like to do nail designs, clothes design and just designing in general. I want to share beautiful and great things with my friends. I really want to see how to control the quality of the product and let everyone try them out and I would become very happy, so I think that I would like to be in the research department.]

Translation: pommy48@AHS (thx a lot to her ♥)