I personally kind of yearn to play characters who are complex and who strike a truthful chord in me and who are challenged in some way and, I guess, who kind of move through those challenges.

People are so fearful about opening themselves up. All you want to do is to be able to connect with other people. When you connect with other people, you connect with something in yourself. It makes you feel happy. And yet it's so scary, it makes people feel vulnerable and unsafe.

I think that the Japanese culture is one of the very few cultures left that is its own entity. They're just so traditional and so specific in their ways. It's kind of untouched, it's not Americanized.

It's strange, because it seems that society is kind of promoting or nurturing this kind of ostracized existence. People are kind of very much in their own little worlds.

There are actors who are really fantastically talented at being natural on screen and appearing to be themselves, but I like the challenge of becoming somebody else.

I think the most interesting thing about any story is how people change. That's usually a struggle, because change is pretty much an uncomfortable thing.

An accent in a way can be an entry into a character.