Hong Kong (AP): Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi said Anthony Hopkins' famous portrayal of the cannibalistic Hannibal Lecter inspired her own murderous performance in her new movie ``The Horsemen,'' a Hong Kong magazine reported.

``This killer that I play likes to torture her victims psychologically before the kill. To get into this kind of mentality I watched Anthony Hopkins in his brilliant interpretation of a killer,'' Zhang said in an interview in the June edition of Prestige Hong Kong magazine.

``You can see how he uses words ... very carefully. None are wasted. I watched him in that performance countless times,'' Zhang told the magazine. She said she also watched other movies about serial killers to prepare for the role.

``The Horsemen,'' also starring Dennis Quaid, is about serial killings linked to the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Zhang finished shooting the movie in March, her manager said earlier.

Hopkins played the infamous villain Hannibal Lecter in the movies ``The Silence of the Lambs,'' ``Hannibal'' and ``Red Dragon.''

Zhang, whose own credits include ``Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' and ``Memoirs of a Geisha,'' said she has signed on for a role in Chinese director Chen Kaige's upcoming movie about the late Peking Opera star Mei Lanfang. She plays one of Mei's fellow Peking Opera singers.

Mei was a pioneer of promoting the Peking opera abroad in the early twentieth century.