Acting's fun, but life's more important
My mother died when I was young, and I was filming all the time. I was all over the place. Acting was the one constant.
If that day comes when I'm done with the acting and singing, I'll just pack it in and go home.
If you work with amazing actors, you've got a master class happening in front of you. But [also] it's just acting at the end of the day.
The truth in acting is that we are all hired help. We are a commodity. There is no difference between being an actor and pork bellies.
I was on Stealing Beauty in 1996 and then I started feeling acting was something I wanted to do forever. It made me feel like I'll still be looking for parts when I'm 70 years old.
I've always enjoyed acting, but there's a part of me that's shied away from living a celebrity life. I don't feel comfortable being noticed all the time. Sometimes I even fantasize about doing things other than acting. But I can remember being back on set the third day of my latest project and going, "Ahh, this is what I have to do for a living." It's what makes me happy.
I was a very determined kid. I couldn't imagine any other life for myself. This happens to kids who are different in any way. How am I going to make a life? Who am I going to be when I grow up? Will there be a place for me in the world? Acting gave me a sense of purpose, but it also gave me a sense that I would survive, that I would find my place.
Why does anyone do anything? Belief. A belief that they are right and just in their actions. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, because he believed that God had commanded it. To kill your son is unthinkable. A crime. But if you are acting in the belief that your God, your supreme deity whom you must obey, has demanded it of you, is it still a crime?
I was born in northeastern China, where we have the privilege to see forests just out of the window. And I thought, I am going to do something because I cannot imagine my hometown without forests, and I cannot imagine the earth turned into a desert. From that day on, environment protection weighs the same in my life as my professional acting career.
Environment protection weighs the same in my life as my professional acting career.
Bruce Lee only played himself. Chuck Norris is a martial artist that does acting. I want to be an actor that does martial arts.
Singing really is acting. In a lot of ways, it's much more personal. I love music, and being able to work on that is amazing.
What I love about writing is that you don't need anyone's permission to do it. You can just get up in the morning, grab a pad and pen and start writing. With acting you're really beholden to everyone else.
With the things that I love, I tried to put a couple seeds, a bunch of seeds in the ground and see what sprung up. Sometimes it was acting and sometimes it was music. But whatever it was I continued to plant.
There are two main jobs in acting - the first one is to be a good actor, and the second one is to convince everyone that you're a good actor.
I'm not really a movie star. No matter what I do in acting, whether I'm good, how much work I get, whatever, I never will be a movie star. Because I never think of myself as one. You are a movie star because you think of yourself as a movie star and always have.
I don't really look for specific types of projects any more. I'm not taking care of a career anymore. I'm just having fun acting.
Acting was my classroom in many ways and I always believed and I still do that acting is not just about pretending to be someone else, it's also about discovering yourself and reaching deeper inside yourself.
I mean there's that awesome quote where Joanne Woodward said, 'Acting is like sex: you should do it, not talk about it.'
My friends in Australia, they grew up with me acting, so they're used to it.
Anything that opens you up emotionally is going to impact your acting. Parenthood, becoming a mom, certainly does that.
When I'm acting, I'm in the director's hands. I'm very happy to be. I like to be focused on what I'm doing.
He knows that there's no better way in the world to aggravate somebody who's trying to make it hard for you than by acting like you're not bothered.
Acting has always been such escapism for me.
