My parents came to see me in a play at Eton when I was 16. And then, when I said I wanted to try for drama school, they knew there was enough passion there for them to be brave and back me.
I've never progressed very far from my days as a smart aleck in middle school.
I was the kid who always liked to take the ball down to the school even in my free time, kick it against the wall, juggle it in the front yard and so it was kind of a perpetual state of playing soccer for me.
I went to a lovely school, and I got an incredible education. And I actually think that my education is what really sets me apart, 'cause I'm very smart.
I don't really consider myself to be an actor of any particular style. My aim with every role I undertake is to be truthful and honest in that particular portrayal. I don't have a particular methodology from any one school of thought or training.
I moved to New York when I was 17 and I had no idea what I was doing. I really thought I was going to take that city by storm and it taught me a lot; it was like the school of life. For me, it was like a series of really hilarious experiences in New York with getting jobs and getting fired.
Which to this day is a source of enormous guilt, because I left with three classes to go in the business school to sign a contract with 20th Century Fox.
I actually happened to be in Haiti right before the earthquake in 2010. I was there already with the organization I work with now, Artists for Peace and Justice, visiting the primary school that I had adopted, the Academy for Peace and Justice in Port-au-Prince. I came back, and within days, the earthquake happened.
We don't stop going to school when we graduate.
When school children start paying union dues, that 's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.
I was a jock in college and high school, but I didn't hang out with the jocks. I was sort of a nerd who didn't look like a nerd. I never really fit into any social set.
I did grow up in a very small town, and I only had a couple of people in my year at school. There were a lot of kids to play with - maybe not the same age, but there was always someone around.
You know when everyone's watching, your mom and dad, your friends in high school who thought they were better than you. You get your chance to get in the spotlight and shine.
In my generation, there was no sushi school, no cooking school, so people have to learn from working.
I love 'Sunday in the Park with George.' I saw that when I was just, just starting theater school, and I remember singing 'Finishing the Hat' or at least reading the lyrics to 'Finishing the Hat' and other songs from 'Sunday in the Park with George' to my mom to try to explain why I wanted to be an artist.
I coach my daughter's softball and basketball team. We go to all the school functions. We go out to eat at night and take the kids to the movies. We try to be as normal as we can.
As someone who went to school in the '70s and '80s, I can't say that I noticed much of a 'medals for all' culture myself.
I like building and making things. I, perhaps, would like to try my hand at directing one day. Sometimes I fancy myself as an architect - but I think I might need to go back to school for that.
I volunteer with School on Wheels in Los Angeles, and I also tutor with Koreh L.A.
There's a lot of dopes in life, and in film school. The interesting people are usually easy to find.
Everybody around the world wants to send their kids to our universities. But nobody wants to send their kids here to public school.
But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.
I wore goofy hats to school and did musical theater. Most people thought I was a dork. But if you have a sense of humor about it, no one can bring you down.
I grew up in New York City, and I moved to Florida in high school.
You see what happens in college and high school games today - a three-point shot or a dunk. I think that's the reason that you see a lot of that in the pros today.
My high school didn't have a football team; we just had like a surf team, because I grew up in Encinitas, California, which is the ultimate place where everyone skated or surfed, so it was a very different culture. It was, like, cool to be the art kid.
I decided to take two years between finishing undergraduate and beginning medical school to devote fully to medical research. I knew that I wanted to go to medical school during undergraduate, but I was also eager to get a significant amount of research experience.
My first job in construction paid my way through art school. I was building to pay my bills.
I'd actually been making my living as an organist with bands since I was probably 15 or 16 years old, and then as a senior in high school I put together a jazz quintet called The Bobby Mack Jazz Quintet.
The dueling maturity levels in high school is such a source of comedy to me. I was always such a late developer. I was last to walk. I was last to ride a bike. I was last to have sex. That's why it's fun to portray one side of your childhood onscreen.
Even in high school, I'd tell my mom I was sick of swimming and wanted to try to play golf. She wasn't too happy. She'd say, 'Think about this.' And I'd always end up getting back in the pool.
Throughout most of my life, I've tried to downplay my Chinese heritage because I wanted so much to be an American. I was the only Asian kid in my elementary school, and I longed to be like everyone else. I insisted on American food; I was embarrassed by my mother's poor English.
Give a lift to a tomato, you expect her to be nice, don't ya? After all, what kind of dames thumb rides, Sunday school teachers?
There's never been a game plan, and I suppose I've had an uneasy relationship with my ambition. Someone who had been in my year at drama school once said to me that I was terrifyingly ambitious back then. Which was not at all what I felt at the time - I felt paralysed with shyness, though that evaporated.
Friendship... is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.
I played trumpet in the school bands. I learned things I liked to play on my trumpet, but I didn't learn why this note goes with this note and why it produces that sound. Or how to create tension in the composition.
