Hollywood was a detour, although my mother was an aristocrat from Tokyo who ran away to join the theatre, so acting is in my genes. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa More Quotes by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa More Quotes From Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa I was clear: "I don't want to play businessmen with bifocal glasses and cameras, so if you're going to give me an Asian bad guy to play, then I'm going to give you the baddest Asian bad guy you've ever seen, and you're not going to forget that I was in the film." Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa glassesplaygiving Nature is a big part of my weekend. Whenever possible, I take Friday and Monday off and spend four days outdoors. We should remind ourselves that there was something here before us, a force more powerful than us. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa fridaypowerfulmonday That's the worst thing for an actor: when you say to someone, "Yeah, I was in that movie," and they say, "You were?" Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa yeahworstactors I really believe that breath, in and of itself can become the ultimate self-healing tool. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa selfhealingbelieve In Hawaii, there are 50-year-old grandfathers, because they got married so early. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa hawaiigrandfatheryears It's not whether you fall or make a mistake, it's what you do when you fall. And I say you stand up. You keep standing up. It's not how many times you fall, it's how many times you stand up. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa standingmistakefall Americans really don't understand the Japanese nature, but it's not an easy thing to understand. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa easy-thingseasy 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!" Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa mediayearsschool 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. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa childhoodarmybrain 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. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa memoriesnegativeart Playing Japanese characters and being in environments that are Japanese, like a character's apartment or whatever, if you have directors or art directors who just don't know what' s what with Japanese culture, then pretty soon something's just passed through. I've been through many times where I've pointed out the incorrectness of so much of what's been done to a set. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa characterdirectorsart American comedies about Asians have never been funny to me. That always kind of pissed me off. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa comedykind I was excited about working with Richard Gere. Oh, and Joan Allen! Oh, my God, she is such a force of nature, it's mind boggling. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa excitedforcemind Looking back at my career, if there's one word that most people use to describe me, it's intense. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa careersusepeople The worst thing that can happen is that the effect that they create behind you is bigger than the performance you're putting out. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa behind-youworstbigger You can't just replace someone with a regular-looking guy who didn't say any of the lines. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa linesguy I've been in a lot of cult movies, but I've been very fortunate to have been involved in projects that people remember. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa projectsrememberpeople I have to humbly say people really like the bad guys. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa bad-guysguypeople 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. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa good-dayenergynative-american 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. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa movementtryingmoving
