Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa Quotations

I'm not a method actor, I don't write my character's history or all those kinds of things. I'm more about the 90 percent of the brain that is subconscious. I like to just pick certain pieces, let it soak in, and then let it kind of emerge out.

There were times when I purposely didn't go to school because of Pearl Harbor Day, because certainly there was enough media about it every year to remind everybody. So when I heard they were going to make the movie, I thought, "Oh, no, please not another Pearl Harbor mention!"

Half my family was from the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the other half was U.S. Army, and I was raised on Army posts during my childhood, so I pretty much began my life with a split-brain sort of thing.

Before I started studying martial arts, I had temper problems. I could definitely fly off the handle. Being raised in the south in 1956 definitely gave me some memories to latch onto for negative emotions.

Native Americans say, "It's a good day to die," and samurai live their life to die honorably, so that kind of energy creates a certain mindset of reactiveness with control to a point. And after that, it's gone.

There's one thing about weights with action movies: Once your muscles get that tight, it's sometimes hard to stop your movement, especially if you're trying to move with some strength, and with the swords in the film...

I used to be a street performer, and performances on Venice Beach, it's like playing the Apollo: They let you know if they don't like you!

To suddenly be working with one of the top-10 directors in the world, plus the film was in China, I almost blurted out, "How much do I have to pay?" It was just like a dream come true. That was an amazing experience.

In every aspect of society, including business and anywhere that creativity can be used, we can be - or we used to be, anyway - the most innovative country, because we weren't restricted by artificial limitations. We are made to be wild, free, and creative, and this clearly was a symbol of that kind of energy in America.

Americans really don't understand the Japanese nature, but it's not an easy thing to understand.