Women Born In The 1980s

"I call on the USA to be with us. It’s very important when a regime is destroying everything in Belarus, destroying mass media, destroying all the organizations, it’s extremely important to support all those people."

"I know that Belarusians woke up. Belarusians—we will never return to the state of slaves, as we had been living for 27 years. I don’t hope—I’m sure, that Belarus will be a success story. We will win [against] autocracy. We will bring our country to democratic changes. I take this belief from the Belarusian people, from those who are behind the bars. I take this belief from democratic countries that are standing with Belarusians at this difficult moment. Together, with the free world, we will be able to bring our country, our wonderful Belarus to these changes as well."

"But I understand I have no right to give up, because people who are in jail didn't give up. They now are suffering for us. Only these people, the families of those repressed in Belarus, have given me the energy to go on."

"Democracy is about participation in the first place. And with participation comes responsibility for decisions and actions."

"I've danced my whole life and I really just enjoy dancing and performing, which is probably why I'm an actress. I love performing and getting a reaction from the crowd and giving people energy."

"I think I automatically pick things up…I feel like I’m able to use my body and pick up the choreography in order to use it to move the story and character forward. That was something I was used to doing in ballet — and performing in pieces where I’d be creating a character with my body and expressing it that way. So that’s something that I still really love to do, and I think that’s partly why action is something that I’ve really taken to."

"It feels great to not be standing behind a bunch of men, but to actually be standing in front of it as women with something that we made, something that we’re proud of and something that we put our blood, sweat and tears into."

"I think you go through a lot of it, just kind of repressing that stress. You’re like, ‘Everything’s great, everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Nothing bothers me.’ And then one day it just kind of hits you in the face. You know, where you have to acknowledge [the stress]. …There’s a stigma about complaining about work, I guess because it’s so hard to do what we do and it’s a dream for so many people. You feel like you don’t have the right to complain about anything."

"If you have a problem and you're also successful, everyone does whatever they can to keep it going. I see that a lot."

"I really didn't have any fear about the humiliation factor. That was something I was excited to get the opportunity to explore. My fears were about pulling it off."

"My hope and my optimistic point of view is that ultimately people will always need that human element."

"I love anybody who's willing to stick to their own vision, their own voice, who's not easily swayed by money or by financiers who are going to tell them what they should do."

"I think my drive to work has gone up a bit since I’ve gotten older. The more I work the happier I am. I’m also finding a lot more roles that are exciting and challenging for me on a more regular basis."

"I’ve been very lucky. Most of my career I’ve been considered an up-and-comer, which is sort of funny sometimes when you’re an up-and-comer after 15 years. But I’m really grateful because it makes me feel like I’ve been on this slow climb, and I feel very grateful to be still rising and still trying to reach my potential. There’s been times where it’s been scary. Every actor has those moments when you think this is your last project and no one is going to pick up the phone for you again. I go through that all the time, but then somehow something always comes along and it reinvigorates your spirit and carries you through the next phase. So I always keep that confidence that it’s going to happen even in the dark moments. That’s worked for me so far. Maybe I’ll still be an up-and-comer in five years, and I’ll be OK with that."

"But as an actor you do want to challenge yourself and step outside what you have done in the past and that what I like to do, I like to jump around and try different things and stretch myself."

"I’m probably more laid-back in a lot of ways. I was very type-A as a kid, and I wanted to be the best at everything. Now I’ve definitely learned that this is not the best [quality] to have. You need to be able to screw up and learn from it."

"There’s always going to be challenges and barriers, but you have to be adaptable and go, "OK, if that’s not going to work for me, then this is a passion I have as well." I was passionate about a lot of things in the performing arts, so I was lucky ballet wasn’t the only love in my professional life. I wanted to perform, and I didn’t feel ballet was going to allow me to do that to the extent that I wanted to. Acting seemed like a good transition from that."

"Every part and every year I just learn little bit more about myself and I start liking myself more. That’s been the biggest change for me, which I think is very normal. I started when I was younger; throughout my early twenties, I was just trying to figure out what other people wanted me to be and fit that. I think now that I’ve enter my thirties, I go, "Oh, I’m what people want. What I am already!" Then you start embracing that. Just being yourself is the key to the whole thing. That’s something I’ve really clicked into in the past couple of years more so than ever before."

"Just knowing that I had the complexity and the capacity as an actor to play the kinds of roles I always wanted to play. I think I had always wanted to go down a certain road, but I had insecurities about whether or not I could really focus on that. So when I did that, it felt so good. I realized these kinds of complex roles and this kind of material is what I can steer myself toward. I don't have to worry if I’m good enough for it."

"I always had a love hate relationship with social media. I was doing it but my heart was certainly never in it. I don’t know if anybody’s heart should really be in social media, but mine never was. So I always wanted to get rid of it. And I had before. I had actually deleted it before and then I ended up going back onto it. So now I’ve made the official move. I’ve pulled the plug. And I never say never. I don’t know what will happen 10 years from now. Who knows? But for now, this is really working for me."

"I started acting before Instagram and Twitter and it was a different thing back then, but we’ve all kind of been swept up and I was swept up in it for a while. It was like, OK, this is what everybody else is doing. I’m going to have this many selfies, I’ve got to get this many likes, I’ve got to do what everybody else is doing. And then I realized that I had started taking part in all of that without really realizing it and figured out that it wasn’t not moving me. So it felt really good to let it go. And I feel much more authentically me when I’m not on it."

"Initially I started to back off of social media mainly for privacy reasons. But as soon as I was off of it, it was like this huge wave of relief where I felt kind of a weight lifted off of them. Like, oh wow! I don’t have to spend my days scrolling on my phone. I don’t have to be sucked into this anymore. I can actually focus on just living and enjoying my day itself and not focusing so much on what I’m supposed to share or what I’m supposed to receive and take in but actually just live my life."

"I try to stay pretty zen on set for the most part because it can help make it easier to dip in and out of all of these different moods. So I just try to stay really calm and that way, whatever mood I have to go into, I can always come back to that place. It’s not super hyper, super bubbly, but it’s something calm that it’s easy for me to come in and out of."

"I just learned how to drive a stick shift on my last film, finally. I had never learned to do that, so that is something that I’m planning on continuing to take with me. Also, my martial arts training is something that I want to keep up with after doing it three movies in a row now. I feel like it would be a real waste to just stop that when I do feel like I’ve been progressing quite a bit."

"I tend to try to be pretty level in my everyday life and on set as well. When I’m not acting, I try to be pretty even-keeled and level. I try to keep myself as calm as I can be. It’s sort of a good state to be in if you don’t know what state you’re going to have to put yourself in from day to day. As an actor, you don’t necessarily know exactly how far you’re going to have to go or what you’re going to have go through for a character. So I try to focus on being calm and happy. I try to keep my stress level pretty low so that I’m not bringing any of that home with me."

"I think it’s been a very slow progression for me in terms of shifting the perspective. I did a lot of really, really small films that, at least for me, shifted my trajectory in terms of the way that I saw myself as an actor and the projects that I wanted to pursue. I think it helped me bring a deeper level of understanding to the characters that I play, whether they’re in small films or big films. So I think taking some time out to focus on really small, character-driven roles helped lead me to those bigger projects that were also really character-driven and demanded a certain level of depth that I might not have had without those smaller, more character-focused independent films."

"I'd rather lose all my stuff than lose myself, because I've done that before, and that feels way worse."

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

"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."

"Specificity is what makes good storytelling, and good storytelling is what makes money, and making money is then what encourages new producers to invest in different stories about Asians."

"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."

"I wish reporters were more in tune to the difference between the Asian experience and the Asian-American experience. I think often they lump the two together and think that when I talk about Asian-American narratives that they can cite Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Mulan as proof of concept when it's a different experience."

"Make sure your work is never results-oriented. The result is a byproduct of the work, in a way."

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

"I don't fear being outspoken. The only thing I fear is losing my sense of integrity or losing sight of the values on which I guide my life. So I don't think it's particularly brave or unusual for me to speak out."

"I truly did feel that I owed it to my parents, my grandparents, to do whatever it was that I wanted, because if I wasn't happy, if I wasn't being true to myself, then I wasn't living fully. They had given up so much so that I could live at the level that so many people are just automatically born into."

"You get the initial script, and then things sort of change here and there, but the whole thing is this sort of mushy collaboration, which I love."

"When I'm driving past the place I used to work, or when I'm driving past the comedy studio where I used to take photos in exchange for classes, or when I'm driving past the yoga studio I used to clean on the weekends - it's not that far removed from me yet. I get very sentimental over things like that."

"I never want to forget that I'm doing an impossible thing. How rare is it that you get to be part of something people love? It's really special. It's a very out-of-body experience to be a part of something so huge."

"I think, as an actor, you create things for your character that you think will make it more personal to you, because on the day, you want to make sure that you're truly there in the moment."

"There are so few times in life where you are passionate about anything. And I think that if you can find that, you should just hold on to it and protect it at all costs and just follow it, because it's so rare."

"I believe if you can have an open dialogue about anything, whether it's a book or a movie or TV show, it's this door that suddenly opens your mind to new ideas."

"You need to have that sensibility to say "here's what I like, here's what I don't like" and take it as an actor and go "okay I'm going to change." If you want me to make an adjustment, that my job."

"I believe that when you leave one genre and become a performer of another, things change. I have been part of the relatively new movement where you come out with a salsa record, for instance, and the anticipated hit comes with a ballad version and another pop version. I like that because this way I can reach many more people who may otherwise be limited by the genre."

"I think I always try to go in with a very objective perspective at first. Inevitably, when playing someone like her, after a while you tend to really sympathize with her. It was very hard for me to divorce myself from that opinion."

"I feel like all directing, writing, acting… all things feed into one another in a cool way. It’s just one of those jobs where it’s not too difficult to jump around because they’re all interconnected so to speak."

"I find it very scary that people try to profit off of things like genetically manipulating things. For what? There’s a fine line between progress and cruelty. If you change something in nature can you ever really go back and have we already crossed that line?"

"Take it from me, underwater deep sea diver extraordinaire, driving with my Mom on the freeway is far more dangerous."

"The tough thing about horror movies is that you have to maintain that high level of terror a lot of the time- and for a long period of time too- that after a 13- or 14-hour day, you just feel god-awful. You feel horrible, almost to the point where you feel like you want to throw up but then you just start playing little psychological mind games with yourself to keep yourself going."

"The cool thing about working and meeting a lot of people through your acting is that you never know who you might work with, in the future. It’s really great to be able to say that, potentially sometime soon, I’ll be able to make my own movies. It’s definitely a cool business to be in. I feel very lucky!"