I don't need to be Tom Cruise. I just need to work forever.

I think Anna and the King is a look at Asia from the Asian perspective, reflecting the Asian experience, which is very rare.

There is nothing more beautiful than finding your course as you believe you bob aimlessly in the current. And wouldn't you know that your path was there all along, waiting for you to knock, waiting for you to become. This path does not belong to your parents, your teachers, your leaders, or your lovers. Your path is your character defining itself more and more every day.

But now I really don't want to work unless I really, really care about a project.

As an actor, I'm always playing solitary characters. But as a director, I'm always making ensemble movies, which focus on lots of people's lives and how they intertwine.

When I went home, my family became a little lonely family because it was just me and my mom. Part of my longing to go back to work was wanting to be surrounded by these people who were teaching me things and drinking bad coffee at three in the morning while we were lying around in a bikini in the winter. Somehow it just felt like real life. It felt more like real life than my life.

Where I have problems is when I am in the midst of doing something that I am completely focused on, and then I am asked to buy shoes or something.