Justin Lin

When I think of high school, stills are so important: it's all about the wallet with the kids - they define themselves with pictures, who they know, whose pictures they have. Yearbook pictures.

All my friends were 'Star Wars' kids but I didn't go to the movies, so I was the 'Star Trek' kid.

Ang Lee and 'Hulk,' for instance - a movie about a guy with different-colored skin and a lot of repressed rage? Sounds like the perfect film for an Asian, to me!

Studio films are driven by marketing. The currency is literally money. But in the indie world, the currency is passion.

There was something so pure about 'Better Luck Tomorrow' because money wasn't the currency. It was passion. The fact we were trying to do something even though no one was asking us to. It meant a lot.

I've sat in so many meetings where they talk about converting movies to 3D just for the China market and just to make more money. I saw that people in China work long, long hours and that it's expensive to go to the movies, and you want to rip them off for even more money? I don't think that's right.

When you have an opportunity to do something again, the money goes up and people get more conservative.

I loved basketball and grew up with the Lakers and Magic Johnson. That was a big part of me.

You hear nightmare stories from young filmmakers working in Hollywood, being told what to do.

As a society, we're not perfect by any means.

Sometimes, I think it's important to be a filmmaker first and be able to talk about whatever you want to after that.

Working with actors is actually something I treasure a lot.