To have the freedom to be able to make choices is something I guess every actor aspires to. Most actors don't have those kind of choices. If the part comes along, they take it.
I come from a family of lawyers. I was expected to be a professional of some sort, not an artist. I was never uplifted for my art.
I think that I've been pigeon-holed by virtue of the fact that I've spent so much time in front of a green screen.
If I only get to play Malaysian roles, there wouldn't be very many roles for me to play.
I'm enormously sympathetic to talented people who have few roles to choose from.
People attach too much to the idea of being a model, that you can only be a certain way to have done it. You will always be dealing with it. You're an actor who used to be a model who never trained; there are not many directors queuing up.
Since I was a child, everyone would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up. Was I going to be a designer? It's as if there was a path drawn for me, and I could see, from where I was standing, exactly where it ended.
In a way, I feel that film roles haven't given me the opportunity to show I have a sense of humor.
Most actresses have multiple commitments, from films to endorsements, that require us to maintain a particular look over a long period. Hence, there is never an opportunity to experiment with hair, so we just settle for a neutral look that we can work with across projects.
I always wanted to be a cowboy. But alas! I was burdened early with certain inescapable obligations to world literature.
Viola Davis is a perfect example of somebody who's so much better than the parts she has the opportunity to play.
When you write for a living and you can't do anything else, you know that sooner or later that the deadline is going to come screaming down on you like a goddamn banshee. There's no avoiding it...So one day you just don't appear at the El Adobe bar anymore; you shut the door, paint the windows black, rent an electric typewriter and become the monster you always were - the writer.
I keep threatening to write a non-fantasy book, and they keep offering me the kind of money I can't refuse to write a fantasy. That's a good thing. I have to pay my mortgage, and I have to pay for my Chargers season tickets.
There aren't more lady songwriters for the same reason that there aren't more lady doctors or lady accountants or lady lawyers; not enough women have the time for careers.
It always irritated me that people think they have to be locked into a career path.
The action star's life is very short. Back in Asia, I can do whatever I want to do. I'm the producer, I'm the director, I can do so many things, but in Hollywood any time I present a script they say: "No, no, no, Rush Hour 3, Rush Hour 4."
If I can do concert recitals, adapting the repertoire to my needs, then no problem, that's good enough. But with operas, unless the right circumstances come up, my career is done.
I've played all kinds of historical characters, but they are stuck in movies that aren't their movies.
There were times, I could say, later in the career, that I wished that my voice would be deeper for materials that I might've wanted to select to do. But that's the style of my voice. There's nothing I can do about the height of my voice. And so I learned to deal with it.
Even I had no opportunity to conduct very many concerts after World War II.
I want to do acting as much as I can. When you're on contract with a show, you can't really do other shows. It's hard to do film. I haven't had the opportunity to even audition much for films because I don't have an agent.
I'm not George Clooney, so I can't just pick and choose. I take roles where they occur.
In a cricket career, your life is in some ways controlled for you. You have no control over schedules, you have no control about where you want to play, you don't have control over that as a cricketer.
The parameters are such that I don't get offered a lot of work. I'm sure most directors hear my list of don'ts and say forget it.
I look at all my opponents, and they could be something else. They could go out and get a normal, regular job. I look at myself and I can't do that. I have a strike on my back. I can't have a normal job. So, I've got to fight for everything I've got.
