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" Being an actor, in and of itself, is just hard. You have to just do it for its own sake. "

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" The one dream I have is to do a musical. I love singing, but most people don't know because I don't sell myself as a musical person. My dream is to play Audrey in 'Little Shop of Horrors' - it would be so interesting to have an Asian Audrey because it's all about achieving the American dream in a sinister, success-driven way. "

" I don't aspire to just play things that are like me. Whether the accent is Taiwanese or British or Canadian - that is the very craft in which I was trained. It is my absolute privilege and honor to do that. "

" My dad got a job as a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. He teaches biology and genetics. My dad has been obsessed with science his whole life. Both my paternal grandparents were illiterate bamboo farmers, so he really worked his way up and then got a Ph.D., full ride and everything, from universities in America. "

" In terms of pure acting, my role model has always been Philip Seymour Hoffman; I really always loved what he did. I love what Mark Ruffalo does. When I was younger, I liked Cate Blanchett a lot. These are all actors who are given stories and allowed to carry the whole story. "

" When I was a teenager, I worked at the Gap for a summer folding shirts. That was pretty mindless and soul-sucking. "

" If you watch any show that stars white people, white people aren't coming up to them like, 'Thank you for showing my face on the big screen.' Because they see their faces in popular culture all the time. "

" I don't have the best family life. I'm not going to have a sob story and be like, my parents abandoned me, because they didn't. But they also are not that present. When I'm alone, I'm alone. I don't have anybody to call, and so I have to create meaning from myself. "

" There were so few Asians on-screen when I grew up, and the ones who were on-screen weren't given complex characters to play. "

" People's passion and desire for authenticity is strong. "

" I feel like I could carry a movie or a show, and I'll mess up here and there, and I'll learn from those things. "

" My parents did not pay a cent for my education; they didn't give me a car or furniture - I did that 100% on my own. I had to pay back a lot. "

" I'm okay with not having a super-secure lifestyle because if you're doing what you like, you don't need stuff to fill any empty holes. "

" Authentic programming that shows the outside world garners authentic interest. "

" I do think there are some actors that can get away with trying to be funny, and they're still funny because they're just likeable, and you want to see them. Me, though, when you see me trying to be funny, it's like the worst thing in the world. It's needy, it's cloying, it's manipulative - it's bad. "

" I'm not a naturally social-media inclined person. I still prefer phone calls to texts/emails. I... hate texts. "

" You're never going to please everyone, and if you do, there's something wrong. "

" I passionately support Hillary Clinton for president because she has devoted her life to public service and has been willing to learn and change along the way by listening to the people she serves. "

" At one point, I quit acting for a little bit to study psycholinguistics - somewhat a more practical career. It just didn't feel right. "

" I am definitely trying not to take films that are mostly about dude problems, not because I don't think they're worthy problems, but there are a lot of people who will take those. "

" When I was a 12-year-old middle-schooler in Richmond, Virginia, my local newspaper published an op-ed that I wrote all by myself. "

" My family is Chinese-Taiwanese. I'm from Richmond, Virginia. The community in which I grew up was pretty white. The storybooks you got at school featured white children and an animal, or animals, and as you got older, the novels you were assigned were about, like, the problems of white boys and their dogs. "

" A lot of times, people think of Asian culture as some mythical world instead of modern people with modern occupations with modern problems, modern tools. Like, we're not all just talking Taoism and kung fu - some people are just trying to get over their breakup with their boyfriend, and they're Facebook-stalking. "

" All the networks have always been willing to have ethnic people as the third or fourth lead or the best friend to the white person. But to actually let a black family or an Asian family carry a show, that's something where there hasn't really been a precedent set in terms of a real financial gain. "

" I'm always hungry for the next thing. I'm never resting on my laurels. "

" My first Asian role model was Michelle Kwan. Her beauty comes from within. She's also really beautiful on the outside. But when I first saw her ice-skate, her performance was so moving and beautiful that she just glowed. "

" If the expression of and advocating for your values makes you lose a job or a person, then that person/job sorta just... wasn't your heart's tribe. "

" Public service is about serving all the people, including the ones who are not like you. "

" Listening to an underserved population is how you begin to understand them and serve them better. "

" Working on 'Fresh Off the Boat' has been really enlightening to me because it's made me actually think about the roles that Asians and Asian-American women have played in media. Not because I didn't think it was important before, but because before, I was really focused on just paying my rent. "

" It's my privilege to be able to play somebody not myself. I'm an actor who creates characters based in voice, movement, emotional quality, speech. "