Considering that Roy Lee didn't plan on becoming a Hollywood producer but just "fell into it," his virtual overnight success is almost as shocking as his films. A horror film fanatic, Lee has made a name for himself by identifying foreign horror films that can be effectively remade for U.S. audiences. DGA members were given the unique opportunity to hear his story on November 13 at "Conversations with producer Roy Lee," a seminar hosted by the DGA's Asian American Committee. Director member Victor Ho, co-chair of the AAC, served as moderator.

Though Lee currently has over 20 projects in the works at Dreamworks, Warner Bros. and other studios, it was the success of his first project The Ring, a remake of the Japanese film Ringu, that jump-started his career.

"I knew what I'd seen was something I'd never seen in U.S. theatres," Lee said after viewing Ringu. The first time he started watching the film, he only made it through the first half because he found it to disturbing to watch alone in his apartment. Knowing that he'd found a worthwhile project, he called a friend of his at DreamWorks SKG. The studio greenlighted the remake shortly after. Since The Ring, Lee has successfully imported films from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Indonesia to be remade in the United States.

"Whatever worked in the original movie, you want to make sure to keep in the remake, but there are certain things that you know (foreign audiences) wouldn't really like or wouldn't really accept."

Lee's efforts to truly recreate the original film often involve working with the directors of the original films. Takashi Shimizu directed both the recent American hit The Grudge and its original Japanese version Ju-On. Though language barriers can present difficulties for directors like Shimizu, who only speaks Japanese, they are given translators and so are all of the American cast members.

Despite the language and cultural differences, according to Lee, the most significant change foreign directors seem to notice when working on American sets is that the hours of the American actors are very heavily regulated whereas foreign actors are required to work much longer hours.

Although several seminar attendees wanted to know if Lee was interested in working in other genres, Lee repeatedly told audience members, "In a horror movie I know exactly what I like. I know exactly the type of settings I like to see and the scares that I want to show." He said he wouldn't produce films about true stories or action films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because he wouldn't know how to.

Asked how he determines which films to produce, Lee said, "I access all the projects in the same way. "Would I would actually pay money to see this? Would I actually want to see this movie in a theatre?"