Tamlyn Tomita Quotes

If you don't know where you come from, it's difficult to determine where you are.- It's even more difficult to plan where you are going.

One is made by all the things around one. There are many things that have made one. For a writer to go around looking for things that have made him is asking for trouble. It's like giving a character to yourself. Can't do it. Can't do it. These things are just there. Is that enough?

I don't have an exact moment when I decided I wanted to be an actress - it kind of was just really a part of my growing up.

I don't know if you ever say to yourself that you want to be an actress. It eventually becomes a social function - you are an actress and you make a living out of it, but at the beginning it's more a matter of how to survive, or how to exist in a certain way.

I'm still trying to figure myself out as an actor.

Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.

I think understanding your life as a story is a really terrific way of kind of knowing where you are and knowing who you are.

I love acting because it's empowering. It empowers me.

'Swimming Pool' was a very important moment for me because the character was written for me.

I mean I tried to transform myself through characters throughout my career.

I have a friend who says that roles choose you at the time that you need them most, and you have to believe, as an actor, if you didn't get a part that you really, really wanted, and it went to someone else, it was because it was theirs to begin with.

Doing acting opened up other creative outlets; it made me feel freer as an artist.

I do like playing the darker side of life but as much as the lighter side as well. They all resonate out of the same place, which is that everyone has a story to tell. Depending on their upbringing and their history, it determines who they are as an adult. My job is to take the role from there.

That's why I have always admired documentaries, because they open windows that can make you understand much better where you come from, much better than fiction, I think.

In high school, I began to dig my way into Ethiopian history, and began to understand myself as a young man formed by multiple narratives.

It is not the question, what am I going to be when I grow up; you should ask the question, who am I going to be when I grow up.

I now want to be playing parts more interesting to me and more exciting to me.

I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me.

I couldn't pick just one defining breakthrough role. I like to think that they're all a part of me.

I never knew I was an artist until I did 'Last of the Mohicans'.

No, I feel like my personality probably influenced the character, more than the character influenced me.

My goal is to play characters that I feel I can contribute to and also ones I can contribute back to my life.

If I'm going to do television, I wanted that 'North and South' experience. I wanted something that's going to challenge me on a constant basis.

The art of transformation is a very important thing to me, and I always believe I can say something more truthful through characters that are further away from me.

With movies, you can do a lot more roles a lot faster. My favorite thing about acting is taking on new characters. It's fun switching it up at times. No matter what, I feel so honored and blessed to be 16 and already living my dream. It's really special.