I think if you create well balanced characters that are well represented, boys and girls relate to them whether they're boys or girls.

If I learned one thing, it is that self-doubt is one of the most destructive forces. It makes you defensive instead of open, reactive instead of active. Self-doubt is consuming and cruel. And my hope today is that we can all collectively agree to ban it. . . . Think to the moments of your life when you forgot to doubt yourself. When you were so inspired that you were just living and creating and working. Pay attention to those moments because they're trying to reach you through those lenses of doubt and trying to show you your potential.

If you wanna do a film where you have a big scope, you've got to make your characters relatable and genuine.

The philosophy I always have is what's the sentence that would tell me about each shot. If I can't read why the shot's there, what is the story trying to say?

Within the model minority rhetoric, Asian Americans are represented as “good” minorities and African Americans are represented as “bad” minorities. Here, the achievements of Asian Americans are used to discipline African Americans. As model minorities, Asian Americans achieved the status of “honorary Whites”. Again it is important to point out that the honorary whiteness of Asian Americans was granted at the expense of Blacks. It is also significant that as “honorary Whites,” Asian Americans do not have the actual privileges associated with “real” whiteness.

I'm always open to questions asked, and it will be up to me at that moment to decide if I want to answer or not. I've always been the kind of artist that wanted to focus so much more on the music than all these other things. For example, "what does it feel like to be a female in a male dominated industry"?

Chinese restaurants have long been a weekly or monthly ritual for many Americans.