He has said in interviews that it is important to be on time, be prepared, and to get on and do the work. He loves acting and wants to make as many films as he can, and that approach also works out financially for him – he has never been ashamed to talk about making money.
Sometimes it seems like he takes any role he is offered.
In the 1990s, the triads controlled much of the moviemaking business, so there were a lot of terrible films coming out – and he was in a lot of them. Back then, he did not seem to be able to say no.
But that changed after 1998, when the Asian financial crisis hit the Hong Kong film industry and the production bubble burst. He said this led to some benefits on a personal level, as all of a sudden there were less films being made, and the ones that were often had better scripts and better directors. There were not so many fly-by-night movies.
Yam has always chosen to work in many different kinds of genres.
Yes, he has appeared in all kinds of genres. He was in the Gigolo and Whore films in the early 1990s – they were kind of romantic comedy dramas about a male prostitute.
He has played cops in innumerable action films. He has played hit men, he has played good guys and he has played bad guys. He played real-life triad members in the early 1990s in films which were sometimes funded by real-life triad members.
Viewers outside Hong Kong may not be aware of his more serious dramatic side.
It was not unusual for mainstream stars to appear in adults-only Category III films in the 1990s, but Yam seems to have done it with gusto – he is famed for shockers like Raped by an Angel and Dr Lamb.
He has done a lot more Category III and Category IIB films than other actors, and he is happy to go to places other people will not.
Why do audiences and producers like him so much?
He is an incredibly good-looking guy with a really expressive face. He is one of those actors who look interesting when they are not actually doing much on screen. Even if he is just thinking on screen, he looks interesting. Yam just has that magnetism – he does not have to be “acting” to get your attention.
The other thing is that he has been around since the 1970s. People in Hong Kong have seen him on the screen all their lives – they have grown up with him. There is a familiarity that he brings with him, and that is really important to his career.
How do you rate his acting?
He is a really talented actor, and he is fearless. Even back in his television days at TVB he was fearless in his choice of roles.
In the film Dr Lamb he puts in a really intense portrayal of the killer – and he did not just play him once, as he had played him in a television movie before that. As he has got older, his intensity has muted, but he is still compelling.
He is not in the first rank of actors like Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, but he is certainly above the second rank. Where does he fit in?
Simon Yam has that quality, but he is less concerned with his image and more concerned with doing the work. He likes to bring intensity to his roles and do something new, and if that makes the character he is playing seem monstrous, well OK.
Yam has never worried too much about his image, and that has made him a better actor. But it has also kept him from being a movie star at the level of Tony Leung or Chow Yun-fat.
Their first movie together was Expect the Unexpected in 1998. Yam had done Casino and The King of Robbery, in which he had played real-life triad guys – they were really cheap movies and they did not do a lot for his reputation.
In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars, and revisit some of the lesser-known aspects of the beloved industry.