Actor

Culture is this thing that exists apart from our real life but is something we all have tacitly agreed to in America. And what film and television do, particularly in this country, is lay out the characters involved in this invisible agreement and dictate who and what can participate.

I like to flip flop, but making your days work to find a laugh is a really good way to spend a day. I appreciate it more going away and then coming back to it.

That's a huge part of being a human being: looking for love and finding a partner in this world. When you constantly play characters who don't have that life, it feels incomplete and not totally human.

Most people deal with grief in an awkward way, and that can be funny.

The Asian-American kids I meet respond to a democracy in the vulgarity of my roles.

People expect me to be funnier.

I would love to do Shakespeare, either onstage or on film.

I am a little curmudgeonly about new media.

What was exciting to me in talking to Kogonada was I was just very convinced that he was a very real and pure artist. He was so uninterested in the commercial game.

The key to doing 'Harold and Kumar' movies is you make it earnest. Primarily what we do is make Harold and Kumar's relationship and friendship believable, and we don't actually work on being that funny.

The message of 'Star Trek,' if there is one, seems to be that we should try to live up to the very best that we're capable of.

I've been called a funny person for a long time. I don't know that I know anything about comedic acting.

The worst thing for a kid is to move around and switch schools, but as an actor, you go from job to job, meeting strangers and becoming very close right away. I've become adept at that.

I have a few go-to moves like jazz hands, shake the booty, stupid eyes. It was once a mating ritual, but now it's all about looking silly and making the kids smile.

For me, the most interesting thing is longevity and sustaining a career, because that's what's truly difficult.

The biggest boss has the clearest desk.

When I started acting... the community was largely Chinese-American or Japanese-American, so even then I felt like a minority in the minority.

I've thought for years, sometimes against my will, about what kind of son I'm supposed to be, what's expected. Being Korean, that's a particularly charged question. Is your duty to your culture or to your parent? Is your life your own, or the second half of your parents' life? Who owns your life?

Ninety per cent of being a parent is just being present and available.

I wanted to explore Korean-American characters. And 'Columbus' did address that. The father-son dynamic felt very real to me.