Cover A film still from ‘Silent Friend’, starring Tony Leung (Photo: IMDB)
A film still from ‘Silent Friend’, starring Tony Leung (Photo: IMDB)
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Actor Tony Leung plays a neuroscientist from Hong Kong in his first European film, ‘Silent Friend’, which also stars Léa Seydoux
Hong Kong veteran actor Tony Leung has worked with some of the film world’s biggest names: Fala Chen in Marvel’s 2021 superhero film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Aaron Kwok in the 2022 thriller Where the Wind Blows and Andy Lau in the 2023 crime action film The Goldfinger.
In his latest project, Silent Friend, which is his first European film, his main “co-stars” are trees. The historical drama, directed by Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi, is set in a medieval university town in Germany, where a majestic ginkgo tree stands in the garden. This silent witness has observed the quiet rhythms of transformation across three human lives over more than a century, played by Leung, Léa Seydoux and Luna Wedler.
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Above The trailer of ‘Silent Friend’
Leung portrays a neuroscientist who specialises in the minds of infants and unexpectedly finds himself experimenting with the ancient tree. Silent Friend is vastly different from Leung’s previous filmography, which has been dominated by action-driven roles in thrillers and crime movies. What attracted him to the project was Enyedi, who is celebrated for portraying deep human emotions and the thin line between dream and reality.
“I didn’t know Ildikó before, but I watched her films On Body and Soul (2017) and The Story of My Wife (2021) [to get to know her work after I was approached for Silent Friend], and I ended up really enjoying them. After these two movies, I knew I wanted to work with her,” said Leung at the Hong Kong International Film Festival’s premiere of the film on April 7, 2026. “The director is the most important [factor] to me [in considering a project]. If you give the same script to different directors, they will have different interpretations.”
Above A film still from ‘Silent Friend’ (Photo: IMDB)
A film still from ‘Silent Friend’ (Photo: IMDB)
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The two met in person later, and Leung was impressed by Enyedi’s “intellectual, generous and confident” quality. “She knows very well what she wants to do. We never discussed the characters or the story, but something about the [connection between] the East and the West,” he says. “There is a quote in the film script that was taken from a neuroscientist: ‘We’re all hallucinating all the time. When we agree about our hallucinations, we call it reality.’ And I said to Ildikó, ‘Wow, this is like our Buddhist thinking, that life is but an illusion. So I said, ‘Yes, let’s do this movie.’”
Leung spent six months preparing for the role, reading extensively on botany and neurology. He noted that the movie completely changed his attitude towards nature. “Before the movie, I just saw plants as plants. Now, I treat them as sentient beings. They have intelligence. They know how to transmit and share information and react to the external world,” he says.
Above A film still from ‘Silent Friend’ (Photo: IMDB)
A film still from ‘Silent Friend’ (Photo: IMDB)
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“Because of this, I don’t believe in hierarchy anymore. We humans believe that we are the top of the food chain and other living beings are more ‘stupid’ than us, but I no longer believe this. We should be more considerate and aware of our actions, especially those that worsen climate change and extreme climate conditions,” he says.
Leung is also inspired to adopt a more philosophical approach to his career. When asked which director he wants to work with in the future, he says, “I’m open to any interesting projects. I have directors I want to work with in mind, but it doesn’t mean they want to work with me, so I leave it to fate. And I love all the directors I’ve worked with before, because without them, there’ll be no Tony Leung.”
Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
