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When I came to America, I told my dad I wanted to be an actress.

When I told my parents I wanted to be an actor, my mom was, like, 'I think I heard you say lawyer.'

The first audition I ever went on, I was accompanied by my mother at the instruction of my father. 'You have to learn how to take rejection if you really want to be an actor,' he said. He had to eat his own words. I got the job.

My mother and father raised their eyebrows at first when I said I wanted to be an actor because I was in this industrial city. My dad had done a bit of boxing on the side, but he was a welder first and foremost. I was 17, and I said, 'I want to be an actor.' They worried it was a waste of time.

I knew that I wanted to be an actor; how to go about it was the question. I went to Australia for my studies; from there I told my dad that I also want to do a course in performing arts, but my father refused. So I completed my studies and came back. But I kept poking him, saying that acting is something that I want to do.

And my father, being a good Swiss puritan, always really insisted that if I was going to be an actor, I shouldn't just be an actor, I should know about the whole process.

I think the education I've had as an actor I would never have had at university.

One of the tough things about being an actor, probably the hardest thing, is getting your foot in the door, and my father handled that for me at a very early age.

I told my extremely conservative, uber-traditional Korean father, 'Hey, Dad, I know what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to be an actor.'