I'm so sick of hearing how there's no strong roles for women. I don't care about strong roles. I just want to see women who are characters! A nun a serial killer a housewife as long as there's some depth there.

The truth is after Boys Don't Cry I realized how few and far between the great roles are. I am beyond thankful for finding Million Dollar Baby.

I was never interested in 'Teen Beat' like roles. I just wanted to work.

I played teen roles until high definition came out and I could never understand it. I would go in for adult roles and be older than many of the people auditioning but they'd cast the girl without a line on her face.

I'd rather a young black actor read about success as opposed to how tough it was. I get these roles because I can act and that's it. Hopefully that's it.

I don't remember ever deciding to become a performer. I just always was. I began performing by mimicking the performers on the new television that first took the attention away from me as the baby of the household. I continued performing to put a smile on my grandmother's face and always considered her when accepting or declining roles.

In the West audiences think I am a stereotyped action star or that I always play hitmen or killers. But in Hong Kong I did a lot of comedy many dramatic films and most of all romantic roles lots of love stories. I was like a romance novel hero.

As far as the lack of hits goes I think perhaps it's because I've played a lot of different roles and have not created a persona that the public can latch on to. I have played everything from psychopathic killers to romantic leading men and in picking such diverse roles I have avoided typecasting.

I have two dream roles: One would be a biopic of someone I admire and respect and the other one would be some sort of action drama film similar to a 'Bourne Identity.' I just really want to do an intelligent action drama film.

I don't think the relationship between novels and realities are one to one. Of course novels play different roles. It's essentially just a long narrative form. What you use that long narrative form for can be very different.