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I really wanted to go onstage. Not movies. But I ended up under contract to Paramount. Now I adore film work.

I think when I started acting, the whole time I was working towards one day coming to America. Hollywood, in particular, is seen to be the center of this industry, and I was just waiting for the right time to come.

The theater is where I belonged; I simply wanted to be an actress my whole life.

Corporate Hollywood thinks I'm a geek to go back and do theater. They don't understand why I don't want to be a movie star, why I'm not pursuing Mel Gibson's roles.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do, and then I got this call from a casting director in Los Angeles. She remembered me from something years before, and she called my mom wanting me to audition for this thing.

I made theater very important in the beginning of my career.

I came up through the theater. I came out of drama college and started working in the professional theater.

I sort of grew up doing theater. And that's how I got into film, actually.

Hollywood was a detour, although my mother was an aristocrat from Tokyo who ran away to join the theatre, so acting is in my genes.

We were bemused, I guess, when we got the call from Hollywood. We didn't know anything about the entertainment industry or even what a casting agency was. But I thought, 'What do I have to lose?' It's not every day a great opportunity presents itself.