I think growing up in the States and Australia, we were exposed to a lot of different types of things. I used to go to Gilman to watch punk shows, and it's a complete different environment - you were inspired by so many different things, whereas in Hong Kong, there is nothing for anybody.

Bruce Lee was the first star I idolized. Growing up as a Chinese American, there weren't many people like me on the big screen.

In my 20s, it was easy. In your 40s, it's a lot more challenging. You have to look at it like you're an actor, but you're also a professional athlete. You have to train.

I've built a career in Asia for 18 years, playing roles that had nothing to do with my race because everybody's Chinese in the films.

Standardization of our educational systems is apt to stamp out individualism and defeat the very ends of education by leveling the product down rather than up.

Mum was an absolutely determined woman. She was determined I would have a good education, and they went without all sorts of things to ensure it.

I did tap dancing and stuff like that at drama school. I did ballet as well. My dance teacher and I didn't necessarily get along all that well sometimes. She's brilliant... but it's just because I don't like wearing tights that I put up a bit of a fight there, I think.

My parents were educated in the Turkish system and went straight from high school to medical school; my mom, who had skipped a grade, was dissecting corpses at age seventeen. Growing up in America, I think I envied my parents' education. By comparison, everything I did in school seemed so sort of low-stakes and infantilizing.