Quotes from Constance Wu

My first Asian role model was Michelle Kwan. Her beauty comes from within. She's also really beautiful on the outside. But when I first saw her ice-skate, her performance was so moving and beautiful that she just glowed.

I wish reporters were more in tune to the difference between the Asian experience and the Asian-American experience. I think often they lump the two together and think that when I talk about Asian-American narratives that they can cite 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' or 'Mulan' as proof of concept when it's a different experience.

At one point, I quit acting for a little bit to study psycholinguistics - somewhat a more practical career. It just didn't feel right.

It's my privilege to be able to play somebody not myself. I'm an actor who creates characters based in voice, movement, emotional quality, speech.

I feel like I could carry a movie or a show, and I'll mess up here and there, and I'll learn from those things.

Listening to an underserved population is how you begin to understand them and serve them better.

I'm constantly paranoid that I'll be unemployed for the rest of my life... and have to go back folding shirts at the Gap, which you know... you gotta do what you gotta do.

I'm always hungry for the next thing. I'm never resting on my laurels.

Specificity is what makes good storytelling, and good storytelling is what makes money, and making money is then what encourages new producers to invest in different stories about Asians.

There were so few Asians on-screen when I grew up, and the ones who were on-screen weren't given complex characters to play.

I don't fear being outspoken. The only thing I fear is losing my sense of integrity or losing sight of the values on which I guide my life. So I don't think it's particularly brave or unusual for me to speak out.

People's passion and desire for authenticity is strong.

My family is Chinese-Taiwanese. I'm from Richmond, Virginia. The community in which I grew up was pretty white. The storybooks you got at school featured white children and an animal, or animals, and as you got older, the novels you were assigned were about, like, the problems of white boys and their dogs.

When I was a 12-year-old middle-schooler in Richmond, Virginia, my local newspaper published an op-ed that I wrote all by myself.

My dad got a job as a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. He teaches biology and genetics. My dad has been obsessed with science his whole life. Both my paternal grandparents were illiterate bamboo farmers, so he really worked his way up and then got a Ph.D., full ride and everything, from universities in America.