Lau has last laugh

Glamorous movie stars and high fashion go together like breakfast and Tiffany. But Hong Kong's Sean Lau Ching Wan is one of the less likely names to be associated with the business of looking glam.

He is no fashion icon in real life and neither is he a screen heart-throb.

The 48-year-old actor often plays rough-hewn characters such as the one in Running Out Of Time (1999) and he has no qualms about looking ridiculous on screen, be it wearing hideously loud shirts as the hoodlum Panther in the thriller Life Without Principle (2011) or sporting a luxuriant handlebar moustache in the dramedy The Great Magician (2012).

But he tells The Straits Times' Life! in Mandarin that it is not a problem for fans to accept his association with high fashion: "There's a difference between the me who acts and the me in real life."

Indeed, he looks comfortable and right at home in a sand-coloured Tod's suede jacket over a matching button-down shirt, jeans and dark-brown desert boots. He was the guest of honour at Italian label Tod's Men's World Exhibition held at its Paragon boutique last Thursday evening.

While he has presence, he is no matinee idol like his peers, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Andy Lau. Not that it matters to him now, when he is pushing 50.

Asked to choose between good looks and acting skills, he pauses before replying: "That's hard to choose. Both are important. I would say looks before 45 and acting skills after 45."

Lau started out acting in TVB series in 1984 and made his film debut in 1986.

Over the years, he has moved and entertained audiences in everything from the tearjerker romance C'est La Vie, Mon Cheri (1993) to the cop thriller The Longest Nite (1998) to the comedy La Brassiere (2001).

The versatile veteran says: "As an actor, you have to put yourself aside. If you don't, you won't be able to take on a lot of roles. If you don't put away your sense of pride, you won't be able to act well or make yourself look ugly for a role."

The only thing he seems to avoid on screen is intimate scenes. But he laments: "It's because no one's looking for me to do them."

It is not because his wife, former TV actress Amy Kwok, 44, would frown upon roles which require him to get intimate with actresses. He says: "We have discussed this before. If I were to really film such scenes, there is only one condition attached, which is to do it to the best of my ability."

In the course of his career, Lau has heard all kinds of advice. He notes wryly: "It's easy to give advice. You just say something without having to take responsibility for it. Someone once told me 'You shouldn't make comedies, you're not funny at all'."

He is the one having the last laugh now. His turn as an unqualified bra designer in La Brassiere won him the Best Actor award from the Hong Kong Film Critics Society in 2001. He also won that accolade from the Hong Kong Film Awards for playing a has-been actor in the dramedy My Name Is Fame (2006).

He could well be adding to his trophy cabinet as his roles in Life Without Principle and the financial thriller Overheard 2 (2011) were both nominated at the Hong Kong Film Awards to be held on April 15.

He says: "I've never thought about which role has a greater chance of winning. Both movies are like my own children so it's hard to say which is better looking. When I act in a movie, I just do my job well. Winning an award is not something within my control."

Lau has worked with many top film-makers in the Hong Kong industry and he says he has the greatest chemistry with director/producer Johnnie To and writer/director/producer Wai Ka Fai. They have worked together on films such as crime thriller Mad Detective (2007) and horror comedy My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (2002).

He recalls: "When we are filming, we are usually talking about something else and not the script. In fact, there wouldn't be a script.

"They give me a lot of freedom and don't tell me how I should act. They give me only a rough idea of the story so it's pretty fun."

So which actress has he had the most chemistry with? He says with a laugh: "I married the one I had the most chemistry with."