Quotes from Kelly Marie Tran

I think there are many ways to be brave and that being brave and vulnerable in terms of a romantic situation is one of the hardest things to do in real life.

My parents are refugees from Vietnam, so they didn't grow up with 'Star Wars.' I don't think they know what's going on in the movie at any given time.

It never felt like we were making a 'Star Wars' movie. It didn't feel like it was serious. It just felt like we were allowed to be creative and kind of goof off.

I think a lot of times, in a lot of modern-day movies, a lot of things are CGI, but so much of the stuff in 'Star Wars' is built and created by these artists.

Even though 'Star Wars' takes place in another galaxy, a lot of the themes and things that characters deal with in terms of lessons that they're learning are things that are completely relatable to real life.

'Star Wars' is so much bigger than any single person involved, so you feel like you want to do that justice and also feel like you want to do justice to that little girl inside me that never saw anyone who looked like her, that person who's starving for representation - it's a lot.

A lot of 'Star Wars' fans who are specifically Asian never had a character they could dress up like, or they would, and people would always call them 'Asian Rey' or 'Asian fill-in-the-blank.'

I'm totally pro-porg! I would not eat a porg. They're so cute; you can't eat them. They're friends!

If I am just, like, on a run by myself, I've never been stopped. Even if I'm at Target buying my own action figure, people would not believe that it's me. I actually was like, 'This is me!'

I think that Carrie is such an icon, not just as someone who played Princess Leia, but someone who was groundbreaking in that she was OK with being honest - brutally so, unapologetically so.

I want to work with amazing filmmakers and tell important stories, and if I have to audition to do that, I will.

My mom works in funerals, and my dad works at Burger King.

I feel like 'The Last Jedi' is a lot of things that people aren't going to expect, which I think is a good thing.

I never want to forget that I'm doing an impossible thing. How rare is it that you get to be part of something people love? It's really special. It's a very out-of-body experience to be a part of something so huge.

There are so few times in life where you are passionate about anything. And I think that if you can find that, you should just hold on to it and protect it at all costs and just follow it, because it's so rare.

I have a great family and great friends, and I think that they'll keep me grounded.

I was a food tour guide - I took people on a tour to different restaurants in the area.

In terms of the timeline, 'The Force Awakens' came out in December of 2015. I got the role in November of 2015. I was auditioning and waiting to hear back when their marketing machine was everywhere. It's like you're going for something that's so high stakes, and you try to remind yourself, 'Okay, stop thinking about it,' and it's everywhere.

I actually read 'The Last Jedi' before 'The Force Awakens' came out. It totally helped me, though! The idea of this franchise that I already knew was such a big cultural thing, I was sort of given this freedom to be honest with that character and not have this pressure of making her something else that we had already seen in this universe.

My dad was a street kid for seven years - he was homeless.

Growing up, I've always felt I was from two different worlds. I was born in the U.S., but my parents were born in Vietnam, and they raised my sisters and I with the parenting methods of the Vietnamese culture.

Carrie Fisher will always be an icon as Leia, but also as Carrie. She will live on forever.

I didn't know there was this sort of immediate camaraderie that's very intense when you make a movie because you're all in this together. You tend to get really close to people really fast.

I do feel like my improv training has helped me throughout my entire audition process only because the idea of 'yes and-ing' applies to everything.