'Mulan' star Jason Scott Lee enjoyed playing complicated villain after years of heroic roles
“Mulan” made a villain out of Jason Scott Lee.
The actor, long known for his hero roles, including as martial arts icon Bruce Lee, enjoyed playing the central antagonist in Disney’s new live-action adaptation of the 1998 animated classic.
“It’s fun because you can break through a lot of the barriers of having to play the hero,” Lee, 53, said. “There are some darker places and some deeper areas that you want to play in that you don’t get to when you play the hero. … Putting on that mask of being the villain and carrying it through was exhilarating.”
Like the original, the new movie follows the courageous Hua Mulan, who, disguised as a man, joins the Chinese military to spare her ailing father from having to serve in a war against invaders.
