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 are a lot of wannabe men in Hollywood. But when you have that Hollywood mentality, there aren't a lot of real, grounded people.

My major intention for coming to Hollywood - besides the fact that I was just enamored with acting from a very young age - was that I was tired of seeing wimpy Asian actors.

Kids keep getting wiser younger, which is dangerous, and adults need to stop taking themselves too seriously.

Bruce Lee was the first guy to bring film recognition of Asian men not being wimps, so it made me want to be as powerful as he was.

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.

Half my family was from the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the other half was U.S. Army, and I was raised on Army posts during my childhood, so I pretty much began my life with a split-brain sort of thing.