After a performance, I met the man who would later be my acting coach who helped me get into my acting conservatory. It was apparent to me that there were many others who were in support of me becoming an actor and making a name for myself. I am forever grateful to those teachers and mentors who instead of saying, 'Why you?' said, 'Why not you?'

It's so easy to make an Asian person the doctor, the lawyer, the smart kid in school. What's harder is challenging the norm and hiring Asian actors to play your Average Joe.

Where are the Asian leading men? Well, we're being kicked to the ground; we're not being supported. We're not considered sexy or masculine, this or that. When you start hearing something enough, you start to believe it. But our world is changing, and I think we're starting to see that that's not the end-all be-all.

Rejection doesn't always mean I'm not good enough.

I don't think an actor's job is to be recognized. I think an actor's job is to facilitate the writing in a way that changes the way people think. No other business does that.

I'd been a housewife and mother to our son Thomas Jefferson, and I was looking for a new career. So when my agent called and said a producer named Paul Elliott from E&B productions, the biggest panto company in the country at the time, wanted to meet me I agreed.

I just never, in my career, got into doing a lot of press.

I was asked to do a test commercial shoot for an Apple product which didn't mean much to me at the time. Some music player that holds all your songs. Sounded cool to me and I never gave up an opportunity to work, especially with the possibility of it turning into a national commercial. Coolest job I did in that time.