Justin Lin

Growing up as an Asian American, we're lucky to have two sentences in a history book about the Chinese-American experience.

When I was growing up, the honor role kids were picked on by the jocks. And those kids said, 'You know, 15 years from now, I'm going to be their boss and own them.'

Terminator' was one of my favorite films growing up.

For me, when I was growing up, everybody I knew was a 'Star Wars' kid.

Growing up, my parents had this little fish and chips restaurant in Anaheim in the shadows of Disneyland, and they didn't close until 9 P.M. As a family, we didn't eat dinner until 10 P.M., and we would watch the original Star Trek every night at 11.

We had a pretty good life, growing up in Taiwan, and I think my dad really made a concerted effort to say hey, we're going to take a chance and go halfway around the world so that my kids can have more opportunities.

Growing up, I felt there was nothing my dad couldn't do, but didn't get the chance to do when we moved. I think he latched on to 'Trek' because of the sense of exploration and discovery, and hope. I think that's what he connected to.

When I was in film school I had this great professor, Jerzy Antczak, a Polish filmmaker, and Joe Russo of the Russo Brothers were in my class. It was this kind of Easter European philosophy of motivating camera only through character and motions, and just exploring with lenses. That was the best year of my education in my life.

Star Trek' is not just about literal exploration, but also the exploration of ourselves.

That's in the mission statement when you're part of 'Trek.' It's our job to try to be bold and push forward. You have to be conscious of that.

Space is a big place.

I always found it interesting when you went off to college, people would talk about how you go and search for your own identity. A lot of suburban middle-class kids would be shopping for identities and they would co-opt identities from other cultures.