I can't emphasize more to you that I had the luxury, the privilege of living up here in Vancouver. I feel like I'm on vacation, and I get to work, as well. I don't think I need a vacation after working. I'd just like to really look with a positive outlook in being here in such a beautiful city. I really am feeling lucky on the days off that I have, that I'm here on vacation in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Tamlyn TomitaThe uber polite people who are the neighbors to our north and how we can be so different and yet so the same because Canadians are supremely polite. They're kind and they're just so welcoming to a bunch of American and British artists here filming their show.
Tamlyn TomitaMy mother, she's the one who's gifted with language. She can speak Japanese, of course, Tagalog, which is a Filipino dialect, Spanish as well as English. And I speak a little bit Japanese because I've had the opportunity to work alongside Japanese people. And a little bit of German, a little bit of Portuguese because of work. A little bit of French because of work. But then, if you asked me to carry-on an everyday conversation, I would fail miserably.
Tamlyn TomitaI've never been funny. I don't think I'm funny. People say I'm funny. I go, 'No. No. I'm not.' But again, knowing what it means to film on a TV show and on film, you have to repeat, repeat, repeat. You have to do the same thing a number of times if you're filming a sequence. And to carry that energy in a comedic mode, would be a challenge that I really would frightfully scared, but I'd have to buck up and pull up my bootstraps and say, 'I can do this. Let's figure it out.'
Tamlyn TomitaDon't make the body fit into the clothes. It really is, it's really respecting an individual and trying to cater to that individual's needs. And I guess that's what really is important for each one of us, dealing with each other in society, is look at the person in front of you, look at the individual in front of you and treat that person as a unique individual being. And I think we get along better, not just fashion-wise, but in terms of just dealing with people day-to-day.
Tamlyn TomitaThe fact is that we wouldn't have found out about Manzanar except in our story-telling because it was really never told in the American history books when we attended school. So we were very, very lucky to have that part of history told.
Tamlyn TomitaWe know that there were so many Japanese American soldiers in World War II who were fighting in Europe despite the fact that their families, their parents were back home in American prison camps. It's savagely ironic that between themselves and the African-American soldiers, who were also segregated and didn't see the fruition of the work the culminated in the Civil Rights Act until the '60s, that these American heroes and their stories are not well known; and the fact that the 442nd/100th became the most decorated unit in U.S. history.
Tamlyn Tomita