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

That's the worst thing for an actor: when you say to someone, "Yeah, I was in that movie," and they say, "You were?"

It's not whether you fall or make a mistake, it's what you do when you fall. And I say you stand up. You keep standing up. It's not how many times you fall, it's how many times you stand up.

I was excited about working with Richard Gere. Oh, and Joan Allen! Oh, my God, she is such a force of nature, it's mind boggling.

There were times when I purposely didn't go to school because of Pearl Harbor Day, because certainly there was enough media about it every year to remind everybody. So when I heard they were going to make the movie, I thought, "Oh, no, please not another Pearl Harbor mention!"

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

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.