Movie-making is telling a story with the best technology at your disposal.

I'm home schooled and I have a teacher that goes with me on all my movies.

I spent most of my high school years on movie sets and I'd have like one teacher which was really bad.

I decided at age 9 but I was reinforced at age 13 when a teacher told me I had talent. I can't say she really motivated me because I already knew. I knew I had talent. I went to the Jewish community theater and got in plays there. Then I went for the movies.'

If you put down a list of jobs doctor lawyer janitor teacher or movie star everybody would pick the movie star. And why? So you could lie around the pool drink margaritas and send money to your parents. So that's what I did.

You know how to tell if the teacher is hung over? Movie Day.

For the past few years I was the more visible Asian performer and I think it gave young girls a kind of role model showing it's possible to actually reach success doing movies.

I had come to the point when I realized it was unlikely that my film career was going to move beyond a certain level of role. And I was - because I had graphic instances of it - handicapped by the success of Star Trek. A director would say 'I don't want Jean-Luc Picard in my movie' - and this was compounded by X-Men as well.

This weird thing happens when you're in a movie that has some level of success. People start offering you all kinds of things and they just expect you to do them because they'll be good for your career. It's not about the project's integrity or anything like that.

Movies TV sports come and go but what you stand for is what people remember. Mandela Martin Luther King John Kennedy are people who really stood for something and were willing to die for it. You don't see a whole lot of that any more.