A Quote by Daniel Wu

I've built a career in Asia for 18 years, playing roles that had nothing to do with my race because everybody's Chinese in the films. — © Daniel Wu
I've built a career in Asia for 18 years, playing roles that had nothing to do with my race because everybody's Chinese in the films.
All of us are playing roles, and there's nothing wrong with playing roles because we have to live in this world - the problem is only when we believe in those roles.
I moved to the east coast when everybody else was going to the west coast. I (then) chased it back toward the west coast. I built my career up by doing small roles (which led) to principal roles and getting bumped into main character roles.
I've had a fantastic career playing great parts. In many ways, the colour of my skin has been an asset because I've been asked to play certain roles as a result. I don't apologise for playing them anymore than Robert de Niro is sorry for playing American-Italians.
I had no ambitions to become an actor, whatsoever. I was just waiting for my films to get made and some friends of mine, out of the kindness of their hearts, because I was sitting around doing nothing, started casting me in small roles and the roles got bigger.
I was so tired of the parts I had to play. There seems little for me in Hollywood, because, rather than real Chinese, producers prefer Hungarians, Mexicans, American Indians for Chinese roles.
I had been playing really interesting roles before I got great roles. Little ones - 'The Crying Game' I loved working on, and then 'Bird,' 'Ghost Dog,' so many films.
There's nothing new about women playing pivotal parts or title roles in films. Women in strong characters have always been accepted. It has been this way for years.
We both [with Suzanne Collins ] felt strongly that you wouldn't want to age up the characters, no matter the age of the actors playing the roles. They should be playing the age that they are in the [Hunger Games] books. It would let people off the hook, if you said, "Well, instead of 12 to 18, why don't you make them 18 to 25 or 16 to 21?" If you don't stay true to the horror of the fact that they are 12 to 18, you're not doing justice to the book.
It hasn't been until the last couple years that I've started playing close to my age. But it's fun playing the younger roles because it takes you back to the teen years.
Our job is to find players younger, where they are able to play from 11 years old and grow up playing the game. Rather than, you start playing when you are 17 or 18 and you don't get the opportunity to do anything with your career.
I've been lucky enough to build a career outside of America, where I got 18 years and over 60 films of experience.
Everybody's suffering is mine but not everybody's murdering ... I do not distinguish for one moment whether my child is in danger or a child in central Asia. But I will not accept responsibility for what other people do because I happen to belong to that nation or that race or that religion. I do not believe in guilt by association.
I realized some of the films I did, after a few hits that I had, they weren't working for me because I wasn't comfortable in the roles I was playing. That's why probably people thought I was a bad actress and I don't blame them.
We are very, very fortunate to have built a career based on playing the kind of music we play. In a lot of ways, it's a very eclectic style. It's not pop; it's not mainstream; so the fact that we have been able to have the career that we have had internationally, with all the success we've had, it's like a miracle. It's amazing.
Everybody always feels that they're right even if they're wrong and that's what a whole actor's career is built around rationalizing your way into whatever character you're playing.
I've made a career over the last seventeen years of mostly playing men in uniform, especially cops. The one thing for an actor that is completely death is if you're bored, because that boredom will show in your work. So there was an inherent challenge in trying to keep it fresh, because it's something that I'm familiar with, but the real draw for me was at long last to work with Halle. She and I had come close to working on two other films together prior to this one that unfortunately had fallen apart for various reasons.
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