Most Asian cinema fans would know that Cecilia Cheung, 41, has Stephen Chow, 58, to thank for launching her to stardom.

After making her film debut in the 1999 classic King of Comedy, the then-18-year-old shot to fame in Hongkong and was nominated for Best New Performer at the Hongkong Film Awards, although she ended up taking home the prize for her role in Fly Me to Polaris instead.

Recently, Ceci made an appearance on Chinese talk show The Super Sisters, where she reminisced about the first time she met Stephen at the auditions for King of Comedy in 1998.

According to Ceci, she was given two scripts by the staff when she arrived at the venue and was told to study them. However, she admitted that she never bothered memorising the lines ‘cos “there was too much”.

When she entered a room to meet Stephen, the latter had his back turned against her and looked like, as Ceci put it, “the god of gamblers”.

“He then turned around very slowly, like he was in slow motion, and in my heart I was like, ‘Is it necessary for a celebrity to do that? Does he need to be so over the top?’” Ceci laughed.

To Ceci’s surprise, Stephen then passed her another script that was completely different from the ones she got from the staff earlier.

“I thought, ‘It’s a good thing I didn’t memorise [the previous ones]!’” she chuckled.

Since the new script called for Ceci to act as a woman who knows how to smoke, Stephen gave her a pen and told her to pretend to smoke so he could see if she gave off the right vibe.

The director certainly wasn’t expecting Ceci’s response. “At that time, I was still very simple and innocent, and I asked him, ‘Why do I need to pretend to smoke? I can smoke [a real cigarette] once for you to see!’”

Stephen had previously shared this same story when he and Ceci were guests on Chinese talk show A Date with Luyu in 2010.

“Who would’ve thought that she would… (Mimics smoking action) She’s so straightforward!” he said back then, as Ceci quickly added a disclaimer that she definitely wasn’t encouraging young people to smoke.

Photos: The Super Sisters/Weibo, IMDb, Douban