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Colin : New Year's Eve was another story. We spent it
on a plane. We had to go to Los Angeles for Yao's
first commercial shoot.
The rest of the team was off doing some serious
partying but we settled for a bottle of champagne.
Yao : I'm watching everyone celebrate down there.
Colin : A 1996 bottle of Cristal here donated by the
gracious Kelvin Cato.
He gave all the... his Houston Rockets teammates a
bottle and we thought we'd celebrate the new year by
popping open
a nice, expensive bottle of champagne. Oh, here it
goes. Whoo! OK, guys, everybody, Happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
Steve Francis : Everybody’s, everyboy tried to
set him up with dates.
The most we could get him to do was like, go to
Cheesecake Factory with us. A lot of girls in
Houston, they were begging to get Yao just to come
to the mall or something like that. So, you never
know.
Colin : It's not that Yao didn't like to have fun.
It's more that he only had so much time for all the
new experiences and that he figured hanging out at
the mall could wait.
Man1 : Settle.
Woman : Colin, I'm sorry, I just need you to stay
with Yao so that…
Colin : Absolutely.
Woman : OK.
Man1 : Settle.
Roll,
please! Roll sound!
Man2 : Take one. Marker.
Man1 : And action.
Verne Troyer : Huge head you have!
Colin : What'd he say?
That's a cut.
Verne Troyer : I'm just jittery.
Man3 : In China, there really isn't yet an
established celebrity culture. Up until Deng threw
open the economy the only real celebrity they ever
had was Mao. And it's just not something that people
get a charge out of being. Modesty is, is a virtue
that is enshrined in China.
Man1 : Here we go! This one's for picture.
Photographer : Kind of just a little bit of
whimsical. He's curious, like, ''Oh,'' like, ''You
have one, too?'' That’s…
Photographer : That's it. Yeah, now.
Lee Clow : I think he's really charming and working
real hard at and at the same time he seems very
comfortable and very natural. And I think everyone
now really enjoys knowing the humanity of the
players in the game. I think he can be amazing.
Man5 : So how was your first commercial?
Charles Barkey : You're
hawking products, that's what you're
doing. There's really no serious way to hawk
products. And every commercial I've seen Yao, he has
the ability to make fun of himself. |
