As a working actor, all I want to do is work. That's it. It's terrifying when you don't work. It's very hard when you don't work. There have been times when I've been out of work for like six months. I feel theatre to me is like manna.

A lot of things that I can't get into the room for, even just to be seen, is because they're just saying 'No. they're not casting non-white.' You're lumped into a category with people who are just not white.

In many Asian households, to not go on to higher education, that's like a big no-no. I know my parents' discouragement was for my own protection, and I'm really close to them now, but they didn't understand that there is value in this. That's because they didn't know.

As a working actor, all I want to do is work. That's it. It's terrifying when you don't work. It's very hard when you don't work. There have been times when I've been out of work for like six months. I feel theatre to me is like manna.

I think all women should learn how to strip. It's a really healthy, extremely challenging thing to do.

I grew up never seeing myself on-screen, and it's really important to me to give people who look like me a chance to see themselves. I want to see myself as the hero of any story. I want to see myself save the world from the bomb.

I equate fame towards people who know your work, people who will see your work. But all that stuff, like with the Genies and stuff like that, it was so much fun. It's so much fun and it's nice when it comes, but that's not what it's all about.

Becoming an actor? If it's not a calling, don't do it. It's too hard.

I think the roles in television are better for women right now. At this point, I don't want to continue doing the same things I've been doing in film because it's very limited.

And on a Canadian set, everybody is equal. You get paid the same. You live together in barracks. You have a communal kitchen. You buy and cook your own food.

All the jobs I've gotten in the last two years are because directors have seen the work I've done - indie films, plays, short student films, TV - since I moved to the states in 1996. I mean, I have an entire career in Canada that nobody has seen.

Hollywood likes to put actors in boxes, and it likes to put Asian actors in really small boxes.

I can get a better role in TV and work more constantly than I can waiting around for my friends in Canada to call me every four years - which they do - and I go up there and play a leading role.

I don't get jobs in films by auditioning. I'm not blonde. You can't place me in movies the way you can with certain actors. It's very difficult for my agents.

I feel comfortable in places like London. You get many cultures in L.A. but it's strangely segregated.

I love my hair. When I was young it had weird kinks and cowlicks in it, but I just grew into it. You grow into a lot of things.

I was lucky on 'Arli$$.' I basically got to do whatever I wanted because HBO is great for that.

I'm not a slave to fashion; I'm into exercising my individuality.

If you have ever been to couples therapy it's really, really challenging.

People ask me what I'm writing. They think I'm Sandra Tsing Loh. Or they ask about stand-up. 'No, that's Margaret Cho.' I really think there is this kind of glomming, that they think we are somehow all the same person.

The beginning of my career was so brilliant. It wasn't until ten years later that I went, 'Oh, that was a big, fat fluke and, boy, was I ever lucky.'

When your life changes and you become a more public person, in some ways you need to be a more closed person, you know?

Wherever Koreans are, they set up a church.

With small breasts, you don't have to wear a bra with dresses that have some support. It feels sexy without one.

You should see my house. It's sort of explosive. Like a crazy person lives there.

Hollywood likes to put actors in boxes and it likes to put Asian actors in really small boxes.

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

I've been a very lucky actor.

I don't think I could be happy as an actor if there was a tyrant on the set.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.

Most parts that can be played by one actor can equally well be played by another, but not this.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I never dreamed about being an actor, because that was out of reach. Coming from a small town that was big in farming, and also big in clothing factories, you don't dream about being a professional football player or an actor.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.

And once you cease to be a real person, you stop being a good actor.

When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I said I wanted to work with quality actors and directors.

There are roles I want that my agency might not want me to do because of the subject matter or whatever. Or there are roles that people won't bring to me because they don't think I'll do it. And that is a big strain because an actor wants to act.

Reality is, I'm an actor and an entertainer, and I really wouldn't know what to do with another profession.

I still feel like I'm trying to make it. It's hard to shed the struggling actor thing.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.

Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.

I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.