We have to make movies where we do not think this is for the American market or this is for the Chinese market. We have to make a good movie that anyone would just want to sit down and watch because love, language, culture transcend everything.

I'm still getting used to changing earrings - It still feels really weird to be pushing bits of metal through holes in my earlobes that weren't there a few weeks back, and actually seeing and feeling the holes in my lobes is still a bit freaky.

From a very young age, I wanted to get up on stage whenever I went to the theatre - the actors just seemed to be having so much fun. One of my worries about theatre, in fact, is that the actors are quite often having more fun than the audience.

My father was king of the guidebooks and our holidays were always planned, taking us from a great gallery to an ace cafe to a beautiful view. And as an actor, I loathe improvisation because there's no structure and no one knows what's going on.

There are all these scripts where the women, if they're working, are prostitutes and lawyers with an angry streak who'll kill you. It's a reaction to women leaving their men and men being angry about it and saying it on some subconscious level.

I think there can always be beauty in struggle. I mean, as far as childbirth, I had my son in the hospital, but then I had my daughter at home. There's no doubt that there's a struggling in birth, and a beauty and a horror and fear and joy too.

My family was very conservative, and I had a traditional upbringing. I was not brought up to be a sex symbol, nor is it in my nature to be one. The fact that I became one is probably the loveliest, most glamorous and fortunate misunderstanding.

I think that female roles, they can be victims, they can be sympathetic, they can be in pain, they can be in suffering - but they can't be ugly. I think there's so much fear surrounding that, that it makes a film unlikeable, that it won't sell.

I was privileged to grow up in Mexico at a time when you could play in the streets. We lived not too far from the ocean, and we would be outside all the time with the neighbours' kids, running free. What better place could there be for a child?

I've dedicated a lot of my life to running the Bruce Lee businesses and continuing his legacy. Some people say I'm doing that to make money or to emulate him. That couldn't be further from the truth; I do it because I'm inspired by his message.

Yoga did not just help me with my body, I became fitter from within. It helped me to focus better. In the movies, we may look very glamourous and fit, but believe me, not many of us are actually fit from within. Yoga has helped me achieve that.

If a girl is not covered from head to toe, it does not mean she is inviting you to ogle at her. If we are interpreting it that way, it is not the girl, but our upbringing that is to be blamed. It is the thought process that needs to be changed.

I've been extremely fortunate in that my career allows me to be seen and heard by people all over the world and I know that my only option is to utilize this gift to speak for those who may not have the means, courage, or strength to speak out.

When I was younger, I was always willing to tell a joke and play out a scene. I would get sticks and pretend they were light sabers. I think it was just at a young age, I was so willing to jump up and perform a little play at the family picnic.

I think you can assume because our pool of Asian-Americans actresses or actors - men and women - is pretty small, that whatever project is out there I probably have been asked to audition or I probably chose to not go in it for various aspects.

Well, I think again, the worst part of it was just leading up to it, before we got on set, at least for me... dreading this idea that I was just going to suck and I really had strong feelings about that. I just didn't want to be that weak link.

I feel like a lot of people think of Hollywood as being fake, but it's only perceived that way because it takes 10 people to make someone look the way that they do. In reality, they're there because they are doing what they're passionate about.

I am proud and embarrassed by how incredibly self-confident I was in my late teens and early 20s. I know that there were other things going on, too, but I had an overwhelming belief in myself. Like I said, I'm embarrassed by it and proud of it.

The larger the audience the better. The more pockets in the world, the more interesting and exciting because it just makes it that much more liberating. This makes it that much more liberating for the various facets of creativity to be explored.

I sort of forgot about 'Z Channel' after it went off the air in 1989, but once Jason Resnick of Focus Features made the suggestion, I became obsessed all over again. I still am. I'll probably be this way until I'm 80, babbling about 'Z Channel.'

My biggest beauty tip would be exfoliation, exfoliation, exfoliation! After a lifetime of almost no breakouts, I learned that if you don't exfoliate, your skin has a hard time shedding the old skin and therefore clogs your pores and causes zits.

The lovely thing is that now being offered things is just a blast. In the beginning, I'd be offered something and be like, "What? What do you mean? Are they sure?" And now, I have less shock about it. It's just a real pleasure. It's a privilege.

I think everybody knows that you know it's a stretch, but the good part of that though is since it's such a popular show [CSI: Miami] - all these CSIs - I have had a lot of people come up to me and say that they were going to go into that field.

Sometimes someone that is the 'villain' in your life, when you look deeper and you think of what their issues are and why they behave like that and where they came from - they become less of a villain and more of someone that you can understand.

My mum told me, 'At that moment when you know you can't do both, the marriage and the kids, choose the marriage because you're going to be spending your whole lives together, so you have to put a lot of work and attention into the relationship.'

'Bagdad Cafe' was a film that changed many, many people's lives... how they saw themselves and how they looked at their life situation. I thought I made a little movie. All the mail that I get is about how it changed lives, and that's wonderful.

Acting is our job, not talking about it. In France, they know me like I belong to their family. I go somewhere and I feel like Im sometimes the aunt, the grandmother, the mother, the sister. They all know me. But its not supposed to be that way.

I do think there's a spiritual element in the world, yes. Have I experienced a ghost firsthand, per se? No. I guess I've experienced feelings or some kind of a presence. But I certainly haven't seen any kind of transparent entity running around.

In the past I'd always felt like 'the girl' in the show or the movie. On 'Friday Night Lights' there were a bunch of girls, and I was the woman. Initially there was a little struggle with my identity around that. But now there's a sense of ease.

I have this dog named Marley, and it is a kind of love I had never known. I have a hard time believing Marley did not come from my body. I know that sounds insane, but I feel that connected to her. She made me realize I wanted to adopt children.

I was a dancer from a young age. My parents were dancers; we were taken to a lot of ballet as children. It occurred to me that what I liked more than dancing the steps was acting the story of whatever particular performance I was taking part in.

I wanted to do plays. But then I got out of school and started getting jobs in movies and TV. And I seemed more suited to that. I like the intimacy of working for the camera, the size of performance it requires. I love getting into tiny moments.

Truthfully, I love being in the jungle. I love it when the make-up artists come to set, they come equipped with dirt and sweat. I spend my days climbing trees and I can crawl out of bed and walk on set and that's exactly all I have to look like.

The amount of attention and sensitivity and education that we're getting in terms of specifically the transgender community is great, and certainly that's new to me. But it's not incredibly unfamiliar. I grew up in downtown New York in the '80s.

With the hugely talented women I've worked with or observed, it's not a question about temperament or ego; it's a question about getting it right. If they've got a reputation for being difficult it's usually because they just don't suffer fools.

Documenting trips makes them that much richer. I stick in train tickets and business cards from restaurants. It makes the whole experience poetic, describing the sights, smells and sounds around me. It means I can relive the holiday years later.

I'd love to see more women working as directors and producers. Today it's almost impossible to do it unless you are an actress or writer with power. I wouldn't hesitate right this minute to hire a talented woman if the subject matter were right.

Having cakes as a business certainly changes things for me - I don't now sit at home doing a cake for the fun of it anymore. But it's an extremely happy and pleasureable business to run because people are generally buying cakes for celebrations.

Everything changes as a mother. Yes, work has changed. The projects that I choose are even more important to me now. The world he's growing up in and the kind of stimulus that is out there; they are so precious and I'd do anything to protect him

Free driving is like an extreme sports version of snorkeling, ... That's about 50 feet deep. And basically what you do is you hold your breath and you wear a weight belt and go down as fast as possible and hold your breath for minutes at a time.

My grandmother took me to a play, and... there was a little girl on stage. And as soon as I saw her on stage, I thought, 'This is my job'... I was probably, like, 7 or 8. I was very young... It was 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'.

Having done film, TV and theatre, the nicest final bit of the jigsaw is to do live comedy, because you can talk to the audience. It feels really natural to be able to laugh with them, but at the same time still be within the framework of a play.

In my life, it would probably be giving birth to my daughter. That probably is the most, the thing that moved me the most, was the most memorable, the most wonderful, the most miraculous. I think a lot of women would probably feel that way, too.

I know that it feels dangerous and scary and working without a net, so to speak. And working without a net, for me - maybe other women do it a totally different way - means being vanity-free. That's how, as an artist, I know that I need to work.

Loss makes me feel vulnerable. I've had my share, less than so many though, but enough to feel empathy. It's tough and I see it so much on Earth, too much suffering. The loss of free will I find unacceptable - what most of us refer to as rights.

As a woman, it is so tough to grow your business. People are ready to hear all your creative inputs, but the minute you start talking about numbers and statistics, they look over your shoulder to see whether you have a man backing you up or not.

It's great when improv is encouraged. It's a really fun thing. It depends on who's in the movie and how their process works as well. It takes a director who is open to that because you have a script, but then something funny could happen on set.

I find that I'm really attracted to mysterious creatives, and I love people that are able to put their emotions out there for not just the world to see, but just that are giving of their emotions, but a little bit mysterious and elusive as well.

With a project like 'The 5th Wave,' you do something you would never do in your normal life; I would never have had S.W.A.T. training or boot camp, and there's something really cool about learning stuff like that that's really fun about our job.

I feel somewhere there is a fault in this whole mindset of not accepting the natural process. To age gracefully, to accept life with grace has more beauty and charm. But you have to be fit and healthy. And that is something we should strive for.

Share This Page