I guess my voice is more recognizable than I know!
I look for us - people of color in Hollywood, to create more stories as writers, directors and filmmakers, creating more opportunities for ethnic actors. At the end of the day, we have to be the ones giving jobs and telling the stories, not just waiting to be hired.
I feel like I grew up differently, when you're a child actor you grow up differently, but it's not that different than growing up as, like, a child basketball player who goes to the NBA. There are certain kids who become professionals at a very young age. There's a lot of sacrifice that goes into that.
I love seeing the new generation take something that we've done and reinvent it for a whole new time.
I think it's one of the coolest things especially as a young actor, actually at any time - even doing my stuff with Avatar - merchandising, video games come out and action figures and plushie toys. It really ignites the kid in you.
My grandfather was a survivor of the Death March and his war buddies were among our neighbors. Where we lived in San Francisco, there was a cultural center where the Filipinos congregate to have parties and to celebrate Bataan Day.
Being a Filipino actor in Hollywood, the most frustrating part of landing roles in Hollywood is definitely the limited roles available and the lack of diversity.
I didn't have the regular high school experience. My experiences were on sets.
The crazy thing about 'Hook' was it was one of the movies in town that everybody knew about. It was the biggest film shooting in Hollywood at the time and the idea of Robin Williams playing Peter Pan really captured everybody's imagination.
I grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood, Paramount, California, outside of L.A., like near Compton, that's where I'm from.
A lot of times as an actor you watch a film it's like thumbing through a photo book from your past. It's people you haven't seen in a while, there are people that have passed away, and there are people you owe phone calls to.
I was 15 when I did Rufio and now I've been Rufio for more of my life than I haven't been. Wrestling with that is always interesting because you don't want to be fully defined by it, but at the same time it's you, and you don't want to be ashamed of you either.
My brothers and I came to L.A. as break-dancers when I was about 10, and by the time I was 15, I was working on this really big movie, with Steven Spielberg and Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams.
It's even rougher for the kids today because they have social media - it's as if they're being interviewed every moment of the day even when they're just interviewing themselves, putting out a tweet or an Instagram post.
Starting out so young meant missing out on a lot of things that kids do, that your friends are doing, whether it was playing team sports or school dances with friends. I remember having fights with my mother when I was young about 'Why can't I just go have frozen yogurt with my friends after school and go hit on the girls at the library?'
I come from a traditional media generation, you know? I'm like the last generation of that. And so the whole world has changed, ultimately. Coming into social media, Twitter, Facebook - I mean, the first social media I ever had was Tumblr.