It takes me all of 40 seconds to realize I’m speaking with someone special. Bai Ling is not from the same planet as you or I. Figuratively, of course, yet I’m still ruling it out literally well after we’ve finished our interview. I come clean with Ling as soon as I have her on the phone that I didn’t get an extensive amount of time to prepare for our chat. She assures me in a thick Chinese accent, “That’s better, because now we’re just two human beings being human beings.” My anxieties about being underprepared vanish and I’m filled with an approval for just how cool this woman seems. I’m not interviewing an absurdly beautiful woman whom I’ve watched in movies since I was 9 anymore. –So beautiful she was actually voted onto People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People list- Instead, I’m simply speaking to someone interesting on the other end of a phone and it’s my job to get her talking.