Actress Carina Lau opened up about her marriage to Tony Leung Chiu-wai and their contrasting personalities during a talk show appearance with host Li Jing.
Lau recalled an occasion when her husband gave her a serious scolding. While traveling in New Zealand, she decided to challenge herself by going skydiving. Laughing as she recounted the experience, she said, “One minute of free fall felt absolutely exhilarating! But when I got home, my husband gave me a real telling-off. He said, ‘Are you crazy?’ I replied, ‘It’s perfectly safe, and someone jumped with me, too!’ But he insisted that entrusting your life to someone else was crazy.”
The actress continued, “At least I got to try it once in my life and overcome this huge challenge. The night before the jump, I couldn’t sleep at all. I kept thinking, what if something went wrong?” When the airplane door opened, she felt as though she had been sentenced to death. However, after screaming and leaping out, she felt like a little bird. “I could see the entire ocean and mountains, floating through the wind. I still remember that feeling vividly,” Tony Leung’s wife shared.
Carina Lau described her husband, Tony Leung, as someone who was “afraid of everything.” She added, “If he had been there, he definitely would have stopped me from jumping. That’s why, sometimes, I go on trips without him.”
Lau admitted that she had been unhappy for years because Leung tended to avoid socializing. Over time, however, she learned to be more understanding and respect each other’s personal space. “I used to force someone as introverted as him to attend parties and social gatherings. But whenever he was there, Tony would always look restless and uncomfortable. Whenever someone approached him to say hello, he would have this expression that seemed to say, ‘Please don’t come any closer,’” the actress recalled. Seeing his strained expressions made her feel sorry for him, so she eventually stopped pressuring him.
After many years together, often accompanying each other everywhere, the couple gradually found their own space and became comfortable spending time apart. Lau said that nowadays, simply hearing that Leung is going on a business trip or traveling alone puts her completely at ease. “I’m happy to enjoy my time at home alone. Perhaps this is something we can only truly appreciate at this stage of our lives—a state of being that belongs entirely to ourselves,” she explained. According to Lau, their love has not faded over the years; it has simply become more flexible. “We are intimate, yet we also maintain clear boundaries. That kind of love becomes even deeper. It feels like being family, a remarkably strong and enduring kind of love.”
Tony Leung and Carina Lau have enjoyed 17 years of married life without children. They are considered one of Hong Kong’s most influential, beloved, and wealthy celebrity couples. Both rose to fame in the 1980s, during the golden age of Hong Kong cinema. They first met on the set of The Replica in 1984 but did not begin dating until 1989. After nearly two decades together, they married in a romantic ceremony in Bhutan in 2008. They have not had children. Now in middle age, the actors enjoy a luxurious lifestyle, spending generously on designer brands and vacations at high-end destinations. The couple’s combined net worth is estimated at up to $150 million.
Carina Lau became a prominent TVB actress in the 1990s, appearing in numerous well-known productions, including Infernal Affairs, Legend of the Condor Heroes, and Detective Dee.
Tony Leung rose to stardom through a string of acclaimed films and television dramas, including Police Cadet, New Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre, Happy Together, Chungking Express, Lust, Caution, In the Mood for Love, Infernal Affairs, Hero, Red Cliff, and The Grandmaster.
Sources: Ngoisao