I was clear: "I don't want to play businessmen with bifocal glasses and cameras, so if you're going to give me an Asian bad guy to play, then I'm going to give you the baddest Asian bad guy you've ever seen, and you're not going to forget that I was in the film."

Native Americans say, "It's a good day to die," and samurai live their life to die honorably, so that kind of energy creates a certain mindset of reactiveness with control to a point. And after that, it's gone.

There's one thing about weights with action movies: Once your muscles get that tight, it's sometimes hard to stop your movement, especially if you're trying to move with some strength, and with the swords in the film.

I have to humbly say people really like the bad guys.

In fact, I think new media is going to make a big difference with injecting more people of color into Hollywood and non-Hollywood.

Americans really don't understand the Japanese nature, but it's not an easy thing to understand.

Before I started studying martial arts, I had temper problems. I could definitely fly off the handle. Being raised in the south in 1956 definitely gave me some memories to latch onto for negative emotions.