As a dancer, I know couples that have stayed married but separated to dance on different continents. Dance in general, but ballet in particular, is such a finite career. You can't do it later in life, and it's something that I think a dancer has to have some selfishness to fulfill.

When I first came USA, I didn't feel this was my home. This was where I was studying, and then my home was now rejecting me.

You never know where your next job is going to lead you, down the road. One single episode that might seem so far removed from what you might end up doing in the future might spark somebody's memory bank. Just one little line you said or a look you gave might be what they want to pursue with a character.

Center Stage focused on the drive and what it's like to be a student, and this is what it's like to be an adult and what you need to give up in the pursuit of that passion and that focus.

For the first four years of my studying in the U.S., I couldn't go home for two reasons. One is I was afraid that if I left my student visa may not hold and I wouldn't be able to come back to continue. Second, there was this big outrage in China that I didn't know how to face the public.

You don't want to burn any bridges, but you also want to make sure you leave your character bridges wide open and you're never seen as one particular thing, or that's who you'll be, unfortunately, for the rest of your career.

In high school ethics they went around and asked what everyone thought their classmates were qualified to do. For me, everyone said actress. But to me it was very much "if it happens, it happens."