The daredevil actress and Point of Entry star tells I-S how tough it is to act tough and still look pretty.

You can’t run fast in heels no matter how hard you try, you know. Not even Angelina Jolie, who has a trailer and works like, five minutes a day. The stuntmen in Hollywood might slow down for her but Dinesh, Uncle Cheong and Carl are not going to slow down for me! I know how they are.

New York is the city of broken dreams. I always get very horrified when I see 45-year old women still waitressing and waiting for their big gig. By my eighth or ninth year there, I was already like, “What am I doing?!”

The American mentality perpetuates self-belief so you always think that you’re going to make it. They never think that they might suck. We are always told that we suck, we’re no good and we can never do it but there they’re like, “Oh you’re great, you can definitely do it.”

People here have it too easy. They live with their parents, which means they never have to worry about their rent.

What gives you the impression that I’m a drama queen? There are a lot of actors like that but I try not to hang around them because they drive me crazy.

I have terribly stubborn, stick-straight Asian hair. It just doesn’t curl. When shooting Point of Entry, I told them, “Look, I just cannot have curly hair.” It looks good on screen and all, and I know men have this obsession with curls but it was such hell! My hair went back to being straight every two hours!

Vain men don’t do it for me. Definitely not actors because they’re all vain even if they refuse to admit it. I also don’t like people who talk a lot. I have a terrible sense of humor. What most people find funny I don’t. If you keep joking all day, it would severely annoy me.

I always thought I’d have an easier life as a guy. First of all, guys don’t have to hide behind all that makeup and high heels. Much as I love beautiful clothes, I think the whole shopping experience is traumatic. As a woman, you have to compete with everyone else in terms of appearance, which I think is a complete waste of time.

My male cousins would always bully me by doing things like throw my bag into the dustbin. And because I had to be such a guy about it I had to pretend to be okay. I was always competitive with the boys. I thought whatever they could do wasn’t so much better than what I could. I never felt like I was one level below.

I hate the sound of plastic bags crinkling. My mom, who is a plastic bag fanatic, likes to pack things inside a plastic bag inside a plastic bag inside a plastic bag. When I go on a trip with her, in the hotel room, all I hear is the crinkling of plastic bags! It really drives me insane.

I was vegetarian for five days. I didn’t realize that my options were so severely limited. Anyway, I did it and it’s over. How I felt throughout the experience? Very hungry.

I swam with weights under water for a film and almost drowned. I have this tendency to forget to zip my fly. My friends are the ones who always notice but I have very thick skin so it embarrasses them more than it embarrasses me.

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