"Never Grow Up" by Jackie Chan
Book summary, review and lessons from “Never Grow Up” by Jackie Chan.
Read about Jackie’s journey from stuntman to global movie star.
Learn about Jackie’s tough childhood, his incredible work ethic and how he sacrificed his body for his art.
Book Summary:
“Never Grow Up” by Jackie Chan is a candid memoir from one of the most recognizable, influential, and beloved cinematic personalities in the world.
Everyone knows Jackie Chan. Whether it’s from Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon or The Karate Kid, Jackie is admired by generations of moviegoers for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and mind-bending stunts.
In his book, Jackie Chan reflects on his early life, including his childhood years at the China Drama Academy (in which he was enrolled at the age of seven), his big breaks (and setbacks) in Hong Kong and Hollywood, his numerous brushes with death (both on and off film sets), and his life as a husband and father (which has been, admittedly and regrettably, imperfect).
Book Lessons:
1) Jackie Had A Rough Childhood
“I spent more time in the hallway outside the classroom than inside it, and became notorious in the school...I kept playing pranks, blowing off my homework, misplacing my books, getting into fights, and being a headache for the teachers.”
Jackie’s childhood was not an easy one. He had difficulty paying attention in school and was a rebellious kid. The only class he cared about was gym and found class lectures to be beyond boring. With that kind of behavior, it isn’t a surprise that he was kept back at the end of his first year.
Jackie’s parents figured he wasn’t going to be an academic, so they sent him to boarding school, Jackie was 7 years-old at the time. The school was called the China Drama Academy, there he learned martial arts, dancing and acting–all skills which would help him become a successful actor.
Here was his school schedule:
Wake up at 5 a.m. for breakfast.
Practice kung fu until noon.
Lunch.
Practice until dinner at 5 p.m.
Dinner.
Practice until bedtime at 11 p.m.
Do it again the next day.
Jackie writes that for “ten years, I got only six hours of sleep, night after night.” Even when he caught a fever, the teacher still made Jackie practice kung fu, no exceptions.
It may seem brutal, but the school taught Jackie the importance of hard work, discipline and allowed him to gain the necessary 10,000 hours needed to become an expert at acting and martial arts.
2) Work Hard In Every Role
“For a long time, Jackie only got to play background roles where his face wasn’t shown, or as a bad guy who got smacked in the face, or someone in a crowd who gets kicked by the hero.
”
Jackie Chan didn’t always play the lead role, especially in the beginning of his career.
He started out as a stuntman and often played one of the bad guys that the main character would knock out with a single punch or kick, and most of the time, had little to no lines in the film.
In one of his earliest roles, he played a corpse on set. Jackie was so good at holding his breath and not moving that the director pointed at him and announced “That guy is the best corpse, make sure we get him in tomorrow as well.”
No matter how big or small the role, Jackie would always give his best because he knew that although he wasn’t the best actor around, he would at least be the hardest working one.
Jackie writes that he became known “as the first to arrive on set and the last to leave. My attitude was enthusiastic and committed. I got into the habit of volunteering to do the most difficult or dangerous jobs...and never let on about how much pain I was in.”
It didn’t matter whether the pay was low or none at all, nor did the size of the role matter, Jackie was determined to get as much experience under his belt as possible and each gig got him one step closer to becoming a global movie star.
Even when things got difficult and Jackie had to move back in with his parents, who lived in Australia, and work construction, he didn’t give up on his dream. When the opportunity arose to play a lead character in a small movie, he decided to go back to China and continue to pursue his dream.
Years of hard work and commitment soon paid off, as Jackie writes, “After fifteen years of hard training, I was an overnight success.”
3) Jackie Sacrifices Himself For His Art
“My ankle joint pops out of its socket all the time...my leg sometimes gets dislocated when I’m showering...I’ve been delaying shoulder surgery for three years now..the cartilage in my kneecaps has been worn away, so I can’t go running.
”
Many artists suffer for their art, some even go so far as for dying for it, Jackie Chan’s commitment to partaking in real stunts for his films have resulted in dozens of injuries and even a couple of near death experiences.
Here are a few of his injuries:
Head: After a stunt went wrong while filming Armour of God, he needed brain surgery.
Ear: He also has permanent hearing loss in my left ear.
Nose: He broke his nose on To Kill with Intrigue.
Cheekbone: Broke cheekbone while filming Police Story 3: Super Cop.
Shoulder: Dislocated shoulder during City Hunter.
Back: Jackie almost snapped his spine between the seventh and eighth vertebrae during Police Story and hurt his back again when a wire snapped and he fell to the ground while filming Chinese Zodiac.
Pelvis: Dislocated during Police Story.
Ankles: Broke his ankle during Rumble in the Bronx.
The list goes on.
Since people were paying money to see his films, Jackie wanted to give the audience their moneys-worth by making the stunts as realistic as possible and thus giving his fans a thrilling and enjoyable cinematic experience.
Although Jackie Chan hasn’t broken every bone in his body, he says, “From my hair to the tips of my toes, every inch of my body has been wounded.”
Now that’s commitment.
With Jackie Chan at a book signing event in NYC.
Book Review:
“Never Grow Up” gives readers a deep insight into Jackie Chan’s journey from starving stuntman to global movie star. Learning about his childhood and adolescence was fascinating, Jackie had a rough childhood and was sent to boarding school away from his parents at an early age to study martial arts and acting.
The book details the many early roles Jackie took on, many of which he worked for little to no pay and usually had no lines. However, most of latter half of book is spent retelling the typical mistakes made my many stars: spending money on silly items, gambling, having affairs, the list goes on.
At some point, you start to dislike Jackie because of his childish behaviors, however, it also proves that everyone is human, even the rich and famous make mistakes.
For the average person, this book doesn’t offer as many life lessons as one would like, I preferred reading “Total Recall” by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it seems a tad cliche at times.
Nonetheless, hardcore Jackie Chan fans will enjoy this book, as will aspiring actors and stuntmen since the book shares Jackie’s inspiring struggle and what is takes to become a world famous film star.
Rating: 3/5 Stars
If you’re interested in this book, you can get it here.
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"Letters of Note" by Shaun Usher
Book summary and lessons from "Letters of Note” by Shaun Usher.
Read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s letter to his daughter, writing advice from Ernest Hemingway and life advice from Fyodor Dostoevsky.
This book is filled with 125 letters from writers, scientists, artists, musicians, and many more historic individuals.
Book Summary:
“Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience” by Shaun Usher is a unique collection of 125 letters from famous writers, scientists, artists, and other remarkable people throughout history.
There is an image of each letter and a transcript to go with it for easy reading, the book is also filled with photographs, portraits and relevant artworks that adds a visual treat to this collection of text.
The book contains letters from:
Albert Einstein
Benjamin Franklin
Ernest Hemingway
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Kurt Vonnegut
Ray Bradbury
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ludwig van Beethoven
And many more.
Book Lessons:
1) Life Advice from F. Scott Fitzgerald
In 1933, the famous American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, best known for writing “The Great Gatsby”, sent a letter to his young daughter while she was away at camp.
The letter is filled with wisdom such as the things she should worry about in life and the things that she shouldn’t worry about. Here are a few lines from the letter:
“All I believe in life is the rewards for virtue and the punishments for not fulfilling your duties, which are doubly costly.
”
“Things to worry about:
Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Things not to worry about:
Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures”
2) Writing Advice from Ernest Hemingway
Even the best writers encounter roadblocks and question the quality of their work. So in 1934 when F. Scott Fitzgerald needed honest feedback, he turned to his old and trustworthy friend, Ernest Hemingway.
Fitzgerald had just published “Tender is the Night” and wanted Hemingway’s opinion on the book–Hemingway did not hold back and the brutal honesty of his advice remains invaluable for all writers.
Here are a few quotes from the letter:
“For Christ sake write and don’t worry about what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what. I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”
“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it–don’t cheat it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist–but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.”
“You’re not a tragic character. Neither am I. All we are is writers and what we should do is write.
”
“But Scott, good writers always come back. Always. You are twice as good now as you were at the time you think you were so marvelous...You can write twice as well now as you ever could.”
“All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate of it is. Go on and write.”
3) Advice from Fyodor Dostoevsky
In April 1849, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky was arrested for discussing literature banned by Czar Nicholas I and sent for execution. At the last minute, the execution was called off and Dostoevsky was instead sent to a prison camp in Siberia.
He would go on to spend almost 5 years in prison and after being released, write such classics as “Crime and Punishment” and “The Brothers Karamazov.”
A day after his execution was called off, Dostoevsky sent a letter to his brother in which he described his death sentence, talked about his new perspective on life. Here are a few quotes from the letter:
“When I look back at the past and think how much time has been wasted in vain, how much time was lost in delusions, in errors, in idleness, in ignorance of how to live, how I did not value time, how often I sinned against my heart and spirit,–my heart bleeds. ”
“Life is a gift, life is happiness, each minute might have been an age of happiness.”
“Now, changing my life, I am being reborn into a new form. Brother! I swear to you that I shall not lose hope, and shall preserve my spirit and heart in purity. I shall be reborn to a better thing. That is my whole hope, my whole comfort!”
“The life in prison has already sufficiently killed in me the demands of the flesh which were not wholly pure; I took little heed of myself before...do not fear that any material hardship will kill me. This cannot be! Ah! To have health!”
Book Review:
“Letters of Note” by Shaun Usher is the perfect coffee table book, especially for people who love to read or write. There is something special about reading letters, particularly handwritten letters, from famous individuals that gives readers an inside look into the person’s soul.
Since most of the letters are only a page or so, you can read this book bit by bit without having to remember past characters or the storyline. Instead, pickup this book whenever you have a few minutes and read a letter from Charles Darwin or John F. Kennedy.
The book is also filled with images and photographs that add another layer of personality to the letters and make the writing come alive. Whether you are into science, writing, art, music–there is something for everyone in this book.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
If you’re interested in reading the full letters or reading more letters from a wide-range of authors, you can get “Letters of Note” here.
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Ernest Hemingway’s Writing Advice to F. Scott. Fitzgerald
In 1934, Ernest Hemingway wrote a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The letter contains Hemingway’s thoughts on Fitzgerald’s latest book and is filled with great writing advice.
Both writers and authors will find Hemingway’s advice incredibly helpful.
Writing is hard, even the best writers encounter roadblocks and question the quality of their work. So in 1934 when F. Scott Fitzgerald needed honest feedback, he turned to his old and trustworthy friend, Ernest Hemingway.
Fitzgerald had just published “Tender is the Night” and wanted Hemingway’s opinion on the book–Hemingway did not hold back and the brutal honesty of his advice remains invaluable for all writers.
The book “Letters of Note” shares Hemingway’s response.
Here are a few fantastic quotes from his letter:
“I liked it and I didn’t...If you take real people and write about them you cannot give them other parents than they have (they are made by their parents and what happens to them) you cannot make them do anything they would not do. ”
“Invention is the finest thing but you cannot invent anything that would not actually happen. That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best–make it all up–but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way. ”
“That’s what dries a writer up (we all dry up. That’s no insult to you in person) not listening...You see well enough. But you stop listening. It’s a lot better than I say. But it’s not as good as you can do.”
As the letter goes on, Hemingway advice gets even better:
“For Christ sake write and don’t worry about what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what. I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket. ”
“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it–don’t cheat it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist–but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you. ”
“You’re not a tragic character. Neither am I. All we are is writers and what we should do is write.”
“But Scott, good writers always come back. Always. You are twice as good now as you were at the time you think you were so marvelous...You can write twice as well now as you ever could. ”
“All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate of it is. Go on and write. ”
Hemingway may have written this letter over 80 years ago but his advice, just like his books, are remain indispensable.
If you’re interested in reading the full letter or reading about more letters from a wide-range of authors, you can get the book “Letters of Note” here.
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After reading 100+ books, here are the books I recommend reading.
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