When you feel so strongly about something and other people feel equally strongly, you have to feel stronger about it in order to succeed.

I never went on an audition - when they were really looking at everybody.

All Asian parents are into your children having a respectable, decent stable job. Acting was unimaginable to my parents.

All teenagers have this desire to somehow run away.

I remember watching Swan Lake and everybody looking exactly the same, but being able to relate because they were the only company I had ever seen even on video that had Asian dancers. The Asian community in Hawaii is actually almost as dominant as the Caucasian community. I thought "I can relate to that company because they look like people that I see every day." They weren't all little stick-thin Russian ballerinas.

The difference between me and American-born actors is that I came here with the expectation of not being treated fairly.

I would say it's like a meditative process, to have everything done for you every morning.