These days I'm mostly familiar with two parts of L.A.: one is movie culture, and the other is Asian culture. The Westside is work, and the Eastside is Chinese - which means my friends.

It was nerve-wracking [to unleash 'Life of Pi' to the world]. The first show to the journalists, that was the first one, so I was very uptight. Then I felt okay about the reception because we did a press conference with good and friendly questions, although people looked serious. So really, after the show you went to - the premiere - that reception tells me I think the movie worked, so that was a relief. I started to feel deflated.

I'm a drifter and an outsider. There's not one single environment I can totally belong to.

When I started out, nobody gave me scripts, so I had to write...

To me, Ennis stands for the conservative side of America. He's the biggest homophobe in the whole movie - culturally and psychologically - but by the time he admits his feelings, it's too late.

You have to know the rules, otherwise you have no tools to communicate to the audience, but to keep it fresh you have to break some. I don't choose genres as the element, but the material itself is the element, then I'll decide what genre I need. That's just how I work.

I grew up pretty much prevented from knowing anything from Communist China except that they were the bad guys that stole our country.