“Maybe I’m naive, but I subscribe to the idea that nobody is actually making strategic decisions about their career. Trying to do that would be like playing three-card monte on Canal Street.”

I went to Julliard and we did a lot of mask work there, and I remember thinking in class, ‘When am I ever going to use this?

I’d consider myself a flailing comedy writer.

I only play projects with weird interpretations of presidents.

You learn history in school, and you have a reverential feeling toward it. But by being irreverent, it feels current.

I thought I was going to be a ballet dancer for awhile there. I had a good teacher at Interlochen, this arts’ academy in Michigan, who taught me the importance of storytelling, and I really responded to that. It seemed like a long shot, but I always play the long odds.

Every job is an opportunity to be a better person.

I’m just looking for things to steal [on working with great actors]. It’s like going back to acting school. When you’re around people that do it well and you get your head out of your ass, you can really learn something.

You never can take for granted that you have a job.

You never know when you’ll have a bad idea for a worse joke.

The vampire craze is kind of fascinating. We’re interested in the idea of immorality and I think we’re drawn to people or creatures who can give in to those base impulses and just be bad and not feel bad about it.

People are still people, and they make their decisions based on their life experiences and their beliefs. You really can’t divorce the two. It’s important to fight against stereotypes and oversimplifications in very complex people.

Even the greatest actors have had dry spells where they’ve wondered if they were going to work again.

You think of George Washington, this man who was larger than life, and in some ways he was. But at the same time, he’s just a person.

Don’t trust somebody that don’t have a troubled period.

The place I feel most at home is when I have health insurance. I really don’t care how I get it, whether it’s on film, or television or waiting tables, you know?

You know, 1% of us is in the armed forces, protecting the other 99, and they’re all volunteers.

I’ve never really had a TV career. I’ve been a soldier and a climber.

In the day-to-day, farm work is stress relief for me. At the end of the day, I love having this other career – my anti-job – that keeps me in shape and gives me control over a vegetal domain.

Community colleges are one of Americas great social inventions a gateway to the future for first time students looking for an affordable college education, and for mid-career students looking to get ahead in the workplace.

I look back on my life like everybody does but not just career. I mean I look back on my life as a whole, so I don’t think that I dwell there or anything and in terms of work I hope that there is a lot in front of me.

Whether you are talking about education, career, or service, you are talking about life. And life must really have joy. It’s supposed to be fun.

Career is too pompous a word. It was a job, and I have always felt privileged to be paid for doing what I love doing.

If I were to limit myself to the opportunities that were presented playing only Chinese-American parts, I would be virtually without a career.

[I listen to] “Uptown Funk”, Bruno Mars, sometimes even Nina Simone and Adele. Whatever comes up, whatever floats my boat, whatever makes me tap into something in me to just decompress – I listen to that.