You can't just replace someone with a regular-looking guy who didn't say any of the lines.

In Hawaii, there are 50-year-old grandfathers, because they got married so early.

Playing Japanese characters and being in environments that are Japanese, like a character's apartment or whatever, if you have directors or art directors who just don't know what' s what with Japanese culture, then pretty soon something's just passed through. I've been through many times where I've pointed out the incorrectness of so much of what's been done to a set.

When you start working on a series, it's almost too much work. It's like a movie a week.

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."

The power and depth of Japanese acting certainly inspired me, so I was determined that Hollywood was going to get a taste of that, that Americans were going to get a taste of Japanese action.

Looking back at my career, if there's one word that most people use to describe me, it's intense.