Crave Online: Why were you interested in this movie?

Jet Li: For me? The mummy. I was mummy. Because I play a lot of good guys before and Mummy, of course, the first one, second one was great. I always like it. This time when they say Mummy 3 in China and they say, "Jet Li, you are going to be the mummy." I say, "Okay, fine," because I like the director. We talked about making a movie together before but it didn't happen.

Crave Online: Is it fun being the bad guy?

Jet Li: Oh, for an actor you always play good guys. It's very heavy, because the good guy has the responsibility of taking care of his family, wives, children, neighbors. Being good is not easy. The bad guy is straightforward, selfish. I like the girl. It belongs to me. I like his car, give to me.

Crave Online: American movies have cast you as a villain more than Asian movies. Is Hollywood the only place you're allowed to do that?

Jet Li: Oh, Asian, never, never. If you find Jet Li playing the bad guy in China, in Asia, it wouldn't sell in the theater. They cannot make the movie. You can make some movies and play the bad guy. Maybe even Asian audience still doesn't like it.

Crave Online: What was the makeup process like for The Mummy?

Jet Li: It's okay, fun to play. A lot of the details were special effects where on site it was like a normal movie. I just watched that last night for the first time also.

Crave Online: Were the CGI and special effects really challenging?

Jet Li: Not really because it's the biggest Hollywood movie shooting in China. Even with not having so many soldiers on site, we're still having 3000 people working. Only the makeup, we had a hundred make-up people for the Chinese site. Even the Shanghai street and a lot of makeup there, so you're standing there become a king. Not soldiers, but you still have a lot of people, 3000 people, in front of you so it's easy for an actor to imagine a lot of soldiers in front of you.

Crave Online: What is the state of the Chinese film industry?

Jet Li: In China? I think the Chinese industry is improved a lot. Every year 35% box office go up, now you can see $30 million US dollars, $35 million US, a big movie, and everybody guessing that in the near future, maybe next 5 years, 8 years, you can see similar $100 million US for a movie. Maybe 15 years, maybe less than that. The Chinese market is bigger than American. At that point, I believe a lot of American actors should speak Chinese because over there is big market. You want money or not? It's big. 200 million, 300 million US dollars for movie in the market is huge.

Crave Online: So the piracy isn't as bad? They've gotten it under control?

Jet Li: I think the people who work for the government, work for the big studio in China, they're very open. They don't have a problem. The problem is the audience. A lot of movies they greenlight to the market, but when teenagers starts [posting], they don't like it on the internet, then maybe a million people follow them. They will make decisions, like Memoirs of a Geisha. Greenlight, but if the audience has a million people against the movie, that makes them change the decision to stop the movie. If the audience doesn't want it, it's not a studio argument.

Crave Online: Don't you have a built in audience?

Jet Li: But if they have three million against the movie, saying, "Jet Li plays the bad guy, we don't want to watch it. We don't want to insult the Chinese people," then they have three million.

Crave Online: What are you doing next?

Jet Li: This year I'll do nothing. I turned down two movies. I will only do charity in China because I just started a foundation for Philosophy, helping people. One Foundation. We believe globally we're a big family, everybody supports each other. It's very simple idea. Everyone, every month donate one yuan and we put out a pool to help people. A lot of major studio and big companies support it. A lot of actors and actresses in Asia support it. Like the Sichuan Earthquake, you know, what got a million people to support us so we take a lot of responsibility.

Crave Online: Is acting the same priority that it used to be?

Jet Li: After Fearless I didn't pay too much attention to making movies. I changed my character in the daylight to helping people right now. Movies is my job but my dream is to build up the new foundation and China and Asia. So we started the foundation in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and China where we have a million people involved in it. I need to take more responsibility to pay back to the world.

Crave Online: Is there a place for people to go to get more information?

Jet Li: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can go to OneFoundation. You can get everything. We have a lot of support like Microsoft, Starbucks, NBA, a lot of international companies.

Crave Online: What kind of scripts are you turning down while you're not working?

Jet Li: I turned down a lot of things I thought I did many times already. Just like a 30 million movie, beat up some guys on the street, beat them up. I just think what's the meaning of making that movie? Just business, business.

Crave Online: Do no more Kiss of the Dragon?

Jet Li: Yes, something I've never made before. Something I've never played before. And also a few months ago with Jackie Chan another movie, so there's fun.

Crave Online: Any progress on your Monk in New York project?

Jet Li: I still want to make it. Even 10 years already, I still want to make it one day. Nobody supports it. I really want to make the movie. It's very important. There's no studio support. They've turned down the movie many times. Every time they write a story and then they say, "Needs more fight scenes. More fighting and this and this…" I say, "No, no. It's not about fighting." Have you ever seen a priest down the street fighting with somebody? Think about it. Everybody tried to get more and more things to protect our life, but one guy is coming and he wants to give everything. So it's a big test. I still want to make the movie.

Crave Online: Are you going to the Olympics?

Jet Li: Yes, I represent the martial arts so I need to go and see my art.

Crave Online: How important do you think the Olympics will be for China? Do you think it's a good PR move?

Jet Li: Oh I think they don't need it. Chinese today is much better than 30 years ago. Everybody had to try to draw in the Olympics, a bigger party, you know? I believe it's perfectly nice. It doesn't matter, just do your best to show we can handle the party well and everything. It's very comfortable for me, for a lot of people. China today, think about it, the government handled the earthquake, they are very confident. I think in the old style a lot of Western people doesn't understand the Chinese government. But today's Chinese government is very open and confident, which is what the Western is. But normal people make a lot of decisions today. They're online to make a lot of decisions. It's not the government wants to change, it's teenagers. It's normal people these days. It's not the government. The government's very confident and open because they have a real education, a lot of professors. All the senior officials in the government are all well educated and studied all over the world, so they understand the international world. But the problem is in dealing with back in China in the general public, not everyone is as well educated and they still give the government a lot of pressure how they want to maintain things in China. So it's not so easy as to say, "Well, we'll just change and be more Western-like." The people would not come to terms with that.

Crave Online: Do you think the Tibet issue will be eventually resolved?

Jet Li: They've already started talking about it, right? They're having meetings. They're talking about it because there's a long journey to do it. Because in the past maybe 500 years, 1000 years already they're sometimes together, sometimes they have different opinions. But I'm Buddhist. From my view Buddhist is Buddhist. It's not politics. Like American religion. It's not a politics. Whatever your Buddhism, whatever people, when you put Buddhism and mix the politics together you miss out, you miss out on something. It's two different things because the Buddhists know point, know their own opinion. They try to figure out, pick out for themselves.

Crave Online: What is daily martial arts practice for you now?

Jet Li: Because martial arts is like a part of my life, since eight years old I'm learning until now. But recently, the past few years, I'm more focused on meditation. It's not a physical part. It's more mental part, to understand life, why we need to make movies, why people like the peace but always say to hit somebody else, beat up each other. We talk about something but we want to see something different.

Crave Online: Have you found an answer?

Jet Li: Yeah. I think a big enemy is yourself, how to see the world, how to understand the people's different angles, different cultures, to understand today's universe today's words of how to make them work.