Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Even though there's a lot of horror from Asia in the American cinematic tradition, I hadn't seen Asians at the center of it.
I wanted to explore Korean-American characters. And 'Columbus' did address that. The father-son dynamic felt very real to me.
The message of 'Star Trek,' if there is one, seems to be that we should try to live up to the very best that we're capable of.
I grew up speaking Korean, but my dad spoke English very well. I learned a lot of how to speak English by watching television.
Asians narratively in shows are insignificant. They're the cop or the waitress or whatever it is. You see them in the background.
I just didn't see anyone on TV who looked like me, and then I saw George Takei being cool and piloting the spaceship on television.
Typically, actors overplay jargon or toss it away in an extravagant display of casualness. Real people hit the important parts hard.
Sometimes you just get giggles leprosy and it can't be helped. I find that there's a direct correlation between fatigue and breaking.
It'd be nice if Asian actors could be perceived as profitable, which is the bottom line. We're perceived as not mattering much fiscally.
I got sort of sick of seeing Asians being the blank, bland real estate agent or something. I didn't care. It didn't mean anything to me.
The goal of Asians in the arts is plurality of roles. I've always been hindered by me over-thinking what is a stereotype and what isn't.
When I started acting... the community was largely Chinese-American or Japanese-American, so even then I felt like a minority in the minority.
When I saw 'My Fair Lady,' I was surprised at how mean and misogynistic Henry was. Maybe that's why it's dropping out of public consciousness.
What's impressed me about 'Star Trek' fans is how many generations they span and how many nations they represent. They are all over the place.
I'm not a good improv-er, which is what a lot of comedic actors are really good at. I have failed miserably when I've been asked to improvise.
You know, I always root for the older athlete. I root for the second album. I root for solo careers after the rock star breaks the band apart.
Sometimes I feel indie directors are in the game so they can make a film to get hired to do a big film - that we're all doing this person's reel.
Actors are supposed to be these runaways that get in a covered wagon filled with hats and tambourines and go from town to town making people smile.
I get called Harold the most. I think maybe 'Harold & Kumar' fans don't know my name, and 'Star Trek' fans do know my name... Harold fans are vocal!
I feel like there's this need that the Asian-American community has to feel like people. It's something that Asians in Asia do not understand about us.
The objective is not just to save the crew or just to get the ship up, but the superobjective is to get back home to the family and protect the family.
It's really weird to be in more than one franchise because an actor's life is so nomadic, and so it's a real privilege to get back together with people.
I've found it to be true that sometimes a stranger can give you advice that stays with you, utter truths the closest people in your life have trouble saying.
I like to flip flop, but making your days work to find a laugh is a really good way to spend a day. I appreciate it more going away and then coming back to it.
It's so funny that Hollywood has become so entrenched in its formulas. Because what I've experienced is that the good stuff comes from places you don't expect.
With 'The Exorcist,' a lot of things went into it. I hadn't seen the show until they asked me, and then I checked the show out and thought it was very well done.
Whenever I'm on my way to a premiere or something, I always have a good laugh in the car... because it's all so absurd - I'm one generation removed from starvation.
I have a few go-to moves like jazz hands, shake the booty, stupid eyes. It was once a mating ritual, but now it's all about looking silly and making the kids smile.
What was exciting to me in talking to Kogonada was I was just very convinced that he was a very real and pure artist. He was so uninterested in the commercial game.
It just seemed hedonistic when I first started acting. It was a pleasurable thing. But as I look back on it now, I understand that it was a journey of the self for me.
I have this nightmare that one day I will have to look at every picture I've ever taken with people in an airport or in bars or restaurants, and it will make me very sad.
I think about John Lennon all the time. What would John Lennon do? What would John Lennon say if he got this part? How would he act? I don't know, but he's my moral barometer.
I wanted to do 'Manzanar' because I'd never done anything like it before. The spoken word there is between a drama and an essay, and I'd never worked in concert with an orchestra.
I have an affinity for comedy because I like to watch them. It's an honor to make comedies because I love being able to pop something into the DVD player and laugh. I love doing it.
Conversely, the most powerful thing an actor can say is "no." If something is presented and it's a stereotypical role or something, you can say no to that, and that's very powerful.
I don't know what the next frontier is, but good comedy should put its toe into taboo waters. You have to transgress a little bit, and that area shifts with culture and with the year.
There's only so much I can do to effect change - and really, the thing that I can do that's most effective is to work and to do good work. That, I feel, is speaking out in its own way.
The worst thing for a kid is to move around and switch schools, but as an actor, you go from job to job, meeting strangers and becoming very close right away. I've become adept at that.
That's a huge part of being a human being: looking for love and finding a partner in this world. When you constantly play characters who don't have that life, it feels incomplete and not totally human.
The key to doing 'Harold and Kumar' movies is you make it earnest. Primarily what we do is make Harold and Kumar's relationship and friendship believable, and we don't actually work on being that funny.
I'm trying to think of - knock on wood - how young people would feel today if our president and our leaders were shot at. But... our young people are being killed at an astonishing rate, and times seem dark.
The scariest thing is to go into a new situation for myself, and yet I have a job where I do that every few months, meet a hundred new people, and then have to perform in a very highly pressurized environment.
'Sesame Street' early on and then 'Little House on the Prairie' was a big deal in our house. I always identified with 'Little House' because they were wanderers, and there was something about being an immigrant.
Movies may be as close to a document of our national culture as there is; they're supposed to represent what we believe ourselves to be. So when you don't see yourself at all - or see yourself erased - that hurts.
I've found that one's language abilities, especially for Korean kids like me, get frozen at the age you immigrated. So I've always associated Korea with being a child and being infantilized through my inability to speak.
I don't like when an Asian-American actor says, 'I'm entering this business to change Hollywood.' It feels like the wrong reason - I would prefer they entered the business for artistic reasons, because they need to do it.
Early on, I played a Chinese delivery person, and even that, which was very innocuous, felt like I was somehow betraying myself. I felt very self-conscious on set doing that role, with a crew that was almost entirely white.
It's hard in America as a writer of color, an actor of color, not to get caught up in race and culture. But you're also supposed to be able to write characters and scenes in a way where it's just a matter of fact, a component.
I've been called a funny person, for a long time. I don't know that I know anything about comedic acting. I'm not a good improver, which is what a lot of comedic actors are really good at. I have failed miserably when I've been asked to improvise.
'Star Trek' seems to be an appeal to our better nature, the side of ourselves that works toward peace and cooperation and understanding and knowledge and yearns to seek out knowledge rather than the side that wants to divide and control one another.