When I was a teenager, I worked at the Gap for a summer folding shirts. That was pretty mindless and soul-sucking.
My family is Chinese-Taiwanese. I'm from Richmond, Virginia. The community in which I grew up was pretty white. The storybooks you got at school featured white children and an animal, or animals, and as you got older, the novels you were assigned were about, like, the problems of white boys and their dogs.
It's my privilege to be able to play somebody not myself. I'm an actor who creates characters based in voice, movement, emotional quality, speech.
I do think there are some actors that can get away with trying to be funny, and they're still funny because they're just likeable, and you want to see them. Me, though, when you see me trying to be funny, it's like the worst thing in the world. It's needy, it's cloying, it's manipulative - it's bad.
If the writing is good, then the writing is already funny. All you have to do is make this funny writing true to the very deepest of your heart, and the fact that you are capable of making this true will be hysterical.
I feel like I could carry a movie or a show, and I'll mess up here and there, and I'll learn from those things.
I'm constantly paranoid that I'll be unemployed for the rest of my life... and have to go back folding shirts at the Gap, which you know... you gotta do what you gotta do.
I was emotional. I wanted to be taken seriously. I was pretty emo. I was reciting Shakespeare monologues when I was 10. I still know the whole 'To be, or not to be...' monologue, because I knew it when I was 10.
People's passion and desire for authenticity is strong.
Authentic programming that shows the outside world garners authentic interest.
When I was a 12-year-old middle-schooler in Richmond, Virginia, my local newspaper published an op-ed that I wrote all by myself.
My first Asian role model was Michelle Kwan. Her beauty comes from within. She's also really beautiful on the outside. But when I first saw her ice-skate, her performance was so moving and beautiful that she just glowed.
There were so few Asians on-screen when I grew up, and the ones who were on-screen weren't given complex characters to play.
In terms of pure acting, my role model has always been Philip Seymour Hoffman; I really always loved what he did. I love what Mark Ruffalo does. When I was younger, I liked Cate Blanchett a lot. These are all actors who are given stories and allowed to carry the whole story.
If the expression of and advocating for your values makes you lose a job or a person, then that person/job sorta just... wasn't your heart's tribe.
If you watch any show that stars white people, white people aren't coming up to them like, 'Thank you for showing my face on the big screen.' Because they see their faces in popular culture all the time.
Make sure your work is never results-oriented. The result is a byproduct of the work, in a way.
A lot of times, people think of Asian culture as some mythical world instead of modern people with modern occupations with modern problems, modern tools. Like, we're not all just talking Taoism and kung fu - some people are just trying to get over their breakup with their boyfriend, and they're Facebook-stalking.
I'm okay with not having a super-secure lifestyle because if you're doing what you like, you don't need stuff to fill any empty holes.
If somebody judges me, then they're not my people, and that's all right.
