I am a strong Ukrainian girl, that is why I work a lot.
There is all this controversy that women and girls are too skinny or too overweight. I say to just do martial arts and everything will be okay. You will tone up your body and find a confidence you can’t find just sitting around watching TV and hanging out with friends.
I’m not really easy to live with! There needs to be unlimited patience and unconditional love. Men I’ve known before loved my independent spirit and were proud of my success, to the point that they’d become jealous of the time I devote to my career.
When I learn martial arts, my master will have me try a punch for a week and he will keep saying, ‘No, you don’t have it. No, that’s not right.’ When he finally says, ‘Yes, you did it,’ it’s a wonderful moment. You worked on it. You got it.
I guess the most difficult thing for me was living up to my mom’s expectations. I was always scared that if I didn’t do things in this certain way, then my mom just wouldn’t think I was great. That’s something that was difficult for me growing up.
I was in acting classes from the age of 9, dance classes, music classes – my mom put a lot of energy and attention into me, so no matter what happened in my life, I always had this basis of discipline. So I really worked hard for everything I had from a very early age.
You have the energy when you’re a kid to really fight for rights – that’s why kids make great soldiers, right?
I’ve never actually seen a 3-D movie. I’ve seen some dailies in 3-D and it kind of gives me a headache. But it looks really cool.
I’ve always found that it’s such an emotional experience, trying to find the good parts of a bad character or the bad parts of a good character, and in the end, most of these qualities are already there inside me.
I’ve been really into boyfriend blazers, I like mixing tweeds with floral fabrics. The masculine and feminine look.
I went to Mongolia many years ago and it was so incredible.
I love all the cableknits and the oversize coats.
You know, women are so much cooler than guys because we can do more martial arts. Martial arts are pretty much made for women because we’re quicker and we’re smaller than men, and so we’re faster. You girls really should take martial arts.
For me, having kids put so much into perspective. I wasn’t so worried about my career and what I did or didn’t achieve. Because, suddenly, I was like, “As long as this baby is healthy and safe, everything else is fine.”
Video games are perfect to make into films because they are so visual.
When you’re doing martial arts, you feel like you can master certain skills and be so much more in control of who you are, so that really appealed to me.
I really connected with martial arts. I’d always had a fantasy as a kid of being a ninja warrior, so it definitely answered that sort of need in my psyche, too – a need to be superpowerful.
Unfortunately, I don’t train enough on an everyday basis to be a black belt, but if I put my mind to it I think I could definitely move very quickly in that world.
I feel like confidence is something that ebbs and flows. I was given a lot of love and attention from my family growing up, so for sure I had a natural confidence.
I love to draw, so I really want to go and study art. I’ve never done things for me. I’ve always done things for my career or for my family.
I was also an only child and my father really wanted a son – he’s from that generation – it was always about kung-fu theater on Sundays and boxing games on the weekend.