Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung knows our Bird Park has relocated. Do you?

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Tony Leung is in the building — the Equarius Hotel, to be exact — and everyone wants a piece of him.

It’s a fact that there are few movie stars in Asian cinema who command as much love and attention as the great Tony Leung.

The 61-year-old actor was in town yesterday (Dec 21) to promote his movie The Goldfinger and to have a bunch of hardened and seasoned journalists asking, sorry, wanting photos with him is — yes, slightly embarrassing — but also testament to his irrepressible popularity.

Along with the movie’s director-writer Felix Chong and producer Ronald Wong, Tony touched down in Singapore around 2pm before rushing to Resorts World Sentosa to meet the local press. The night before, the trio, together with the movie’s other stars including Andy Lau, Charlene Choi and Simon Yam, were at the film's Hong Kong premiere.

The Goldfinger is rousing crime epic with the same chaotic DNA as Hollywood movies The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short. And like Infernal Affairs, which Felix co-wrote, the movie pits Tony Leung and Andy Lau against each other.

Tony stars as a charismatic conman who arrives in Hong Kong in the ’70s and swiftly builds his money-making conglomerate based on lies, scams and murder. Andy is an upright ICAC inspector who goes on a decades-long cat and mouse game to bring Tony to justice.

It’s thrilling to see Tony hamming it up on screen as a villain. It is also thrilling to see him in person. If anything, to find out if he’s really like how he’s been made up to be.

He still has that boyish grin that belies his 41 years in showbusiness. That famously bashful demeanor is also evident when he walks into a room filled with people. He does look like he is embarrassed about the attention showered on him. There’s even slight panic in his eyes. Guess all that talk about him having social anxiety — a term barred from interviews today, FYI — are true.

“I still don’t like a lot of people around me. And now, I especially like being alone,” he says during our interview.  

Also off-limits are questions about wife Carina Lau.

He’s wearing a well-worn camouflage print windbreaker and track pants — sadly, not the same ensemble he's been seen in at many events these past five years — and a pair of Maison Mihara Yasuhiro sneakers that has clearly seen better days. He didn’t change for the red-carpet event at Universal Studios Singapore where he was greeted by hundreds of fans.

His hair doesn’t look styled. Instead, he looked like he just rolled out of bed.

All that just adds to his mystique. A movie star who doesn’t care how he looks yet exudes more star quality than everyone else. A real movie star.

It’s easy to look at Tony and think: They don’t make them like they used to.

It reminds us of something we once heard, that after Tony and Andy, Hong Kong has no more movie stars.

He doesn’t exactly disagree with us when we say that to him.

“It’s the shrinking of the local market, and that has led to a drop in production," he says to 8days.sg. "So even if you have talent, and hardworking actors… it won’t be like us in the past when we had so many opportunities to practice [our acting] and to experience [different roles]. I think what Hong Kong cinema needs is to find new avenues out."

In a way, his character’s rise to power in the ‘80s mirrors Tony’s in the same era. Did he think he would become the superstar he is today back in the days of big shoulder pads?

“No, I didn’t,” he says. “At that time, I just really liked acting. It’s the thing that has never changed for me. I still love acting. It is a very fun thing to me. Every time I perform, I get to experience different things and a different type of life. With other jobs, you are doing the same thing over and over again. For actors, it’s different each time and you get to explore different worlds.”

What was the ‘80s like for him? “I just entered showbiz,” he says with smile. “I remember being in the artiste training course. It makes me think of Hong Kong at that time. The ‘80s was the busiest period of my life. I would travel to Singapore a lot then. I started coming here and around Asia a lot. At that time, most of Asia watched Hongkong dramas so I had a lot of chances to travel to many places.”

He says he still visits Singapore often — he was spotted at Gardens by the Bay in February — and his affinity for our sunny island started back in the ‘80s for him.

“I have friends here,” he says. “I used to come here a lot for work, for performances. I miss the way of life then, like the roadside stalls, the local cuisine. I used to go to the parks often, like the Bird Park but that has already moved.”

Wait, how does he even know that? How would Tony Leung, one of the world’s biggest stars, know that our humble Bird Park is no longer in Jurong, we ask.

“I was here recently and I like going to parks. Whichever country I visit, I’ll go walk around the parks. So when I got here, they told me that it moved. That’s how I know,” he says, adding that he hasn’t been to the new one.

He says in the past, when he would brainstorm over scripts with his creative team, he would suggest they fly to Singapore. “I’m not sure why but we would always say Singapore and that’s why we came here a lot”.

Is it because he feels relaxed here, away from the prying eyes of the formidable Hong Kong paparazzi?

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” he replies, without missing a beat. “A lot of times [I can just chill] by the pool. I can go swimming, suntan.” Those are simple luxuries he cannot afford to do in Hong Kong, he says.

Someone asks if he has thought of buying a house here. “It’s very expensive [to buy property in Singapore] now,” he chuckles. “Singapore’s living standards are very different. I hear they are a lot higher now.”

Again, we express our surprise and ask if he reads up on what’s happening in Singapore.

“Yes, I do,” he says, before adding that he “tries to understand the situation here”.

So who knows, maybe one day when property prices fall we can catch Tony strolling and minding his own business at one of our national parks on the regular. 

Photos: Kelvin Chia/ Mediacorp

The Goldfinger opens in cinemas Dec 30.