|
|
|
|
CONTINUED BELOW
Lee and Macari are not “necessarily friends,” but they remain “cordial,” says Lee. Despite this contretemps, Lee speaks of The Ring with deep pride as his greatest success.
Lee's penchant for cold-blooded dealings surfaced while he was attending high school in Maryland. Once a classmate shot him in the ankle with a BB gun. By way of reprisal Lee unscrewed the lugnuts from a front wheel of the classmate's car. The classmate suffered an accident but couldn't come up with enough evidence to have Lee prosecuted.
These days Roy Lee is too busy to devote time to seeking revenge on enemies. But he speaks wistfully about hiring a professional heckler to block his enemies' parking spots, make them late to meetings and generally make life difficult for them.
Cold-blooded pranks and unflattering sendups of acquaintances notwithstanding (“very fat” he says of Spink), Lee projects such earnestness that it's difficult to disbelieve his account of events. Even when he insists that major studios just wouldn't be interested in projects casting Asian Americans in leading roles, you can't dislike him any more than you can dislike a child with the personal style of an impish mafioso.
Still you can't help wondering how a man who speaks no Corean, no Japanese and no Cantonese became the guy trusted to serve as an honest broker by both top Asian directors and major Hollywood studios.
Roy Lee was born in 1969 in Brooklyn. His father was a doctor. His mother stayed at home until Roy and his older brother left for college, then became a teacher. Roy's most memorable moments are of trips to the theater with his mother. Movie ratings like PG, and R meant nothing to her, much to the shock of his playmates' parents.
“She took my sixth grade friends and I to see The Fog which was an R-rated film,” recalls Lee. “We were all under twelve. A lot of parents were upset with my mother the next day when the kids were afraid to sleep at night.”
Roy's mother gave her sons plenty of freedom growing up. But her propensity for hanging popsicle and yarn crucifixes in the family car and fastening tennis ball halves to the bottom of chairs to prevent the scratching of the linoleum were constant sources of embarrassment for Roy.
Lee attended George Washington University. While still an undergrad he interned at the D.C. office of the law firm Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson. He set his sights on becoming a lawyer and decided to lose his group of hard-partying friends. According to his older brother, Roy threw a big Christmas bash. As the party was winding down, Roy told his friends, “I hope you've all had a great time because in the new year I don't want to see any of you again,”
PAGE 3
Page 1 |
2 |
3
|
|
|
|
|
“She took my sixth grade friends and I to see The Fog which was an R-rated film. We were all under twelve. A lot of parents were upset with my mother the next day when the kids were afraid to sleep at night.”
|
A scene from The Ring, the first Hollywood remake of an Asian film for which Roy Lee sold the rights.
|
CONTACT US
|
ADVERTISING INFO
© 1996-2013 Asian Media Group Inc
No part of the contents of this site may be reproduced without prior written permission.
|
