B. D. Wong

“I always knew I'd be more of a character actor than a leading man, and I always wanted to take that and run with it.”

“Asian people are very practical and come from a conservative world. The parents want their kids to be doctors and lawyers. There are casting calls for Asian children, but once the parents find out the children might miss school, they're opposed to it.”

“I used to say that I didn't want anything to do with e-mail. It seemed really impersonal, complicated and weird. I had no idea what an amazing way it is to reach people.”

“I have a fear of labels. If someone labels me, I have to respond - do I acknowledge it, reject it, deny it, live up to it, and defy it? Labels can affect your ability to be yourself. If you're not careful, like I wasn't when I was young, that can take a toll on you. You find yourself conforming to everyone else's ideas of who you are.”

“There is a kind of misconception that Asian-Americans are not as American as European-Americans.”

“I was on 'SVU' for 11 years. I developed a muscle in my brain that could memorize things much more easily than people who don't do it every day. I got used to the language, and some of it got to be repetitive language, so you build your vocabulary.”

“I had saved a lot of money working at Mrs. Fields' Chocolate Chip Cookies, ushering at the Golden Gate Theatre, and doing odd jobs so I could live in New York for a few months. If it ran out, I would have to give up and go home. It turned out OK. I got my Equity card and started working.”

“I feel more and more like 'myself' these days. Before becoming a father, I can remember a low-level feeling of somehow not quite being myself.”

“Television shows and movies that are all white, I can't watch them. They totally alienate me.”

“Because of the accumulation of objects, things are never quite the way I want them to be. There has always been a lack of, well, clarity.”

“I am fine playing 'Law & Order' and even the 'Jurassic' movies to be straight up, as far as the characters being portrayed there, but I never want to stay in straight-up land too long. I always wanted to do something where the character's world gets to be explored.”