A comic always worked with a singer. If the singer didn't work, guys like Tony Bennett and Vic Damone, the comics didn't work.
A decade or two ago there was a big thing in Hollywood in terms of casting people of Japanese descent for Chinese roles and vice versa, and you couldn't play Koreans or whatever. But if you're a worthy enough actor, they overlook that.
A lot happens in 20 years.
Actors never know. We do the job. We don't know if it's going to come out, when it's going to come out, whether it's going to go straight to theaters or to HBO. We're always left in the dark.
Brazil is a huge country, but they get TV in the rain forests and the big cities.
Hip Nip just sounds groovy. A drummer laid it on me.
I began in an era where four-letter words were not allowed.
I didn't have a childhood.
I don't knock. That's not me. Let's just say I appreciate flower power, but I don't arrange.
I don't know of any other creature on earth other than man that will sit in a corner and cry because of some painful experience in the past.
I don't know of any other creature, outside of pure animal lust, that falls in love and has their heart broken and falls in love again.
I had to find things to laugh at. We used to throw spit balls at the ceiling to try to make them stick.
I have a very lucky feather in my cap in that I was able to do comedy. A lot of Asians aren't necessarily from an acting standpoint very strong in having a comedy background.
I hoped that I could learn more of the language of my ancestors, but the Japanese spotted that I'm American, so they insist on talking in my language to brush up on their English. I haven't learned a word of Japanese.
I know there are a lot of Texans here, there always are. I worked in Texas and found out the letters LBJ really mean: let's buy Japanese.
I learned quite early that I wasn't out there to tell a joke. I was out there to be part of the joke. You're a piece of the joke and you act out the joke with someone else. The sketch and the vignette becomes the joke.
I loved working with Ralphie of course. We still keep in touch with each other several times a year just to say hi.
I never was able to do karate. That's calling me a good actor. I act like I can do anything.
I seldom have to actually read. And when I do, the casting people, creative people pretty much know I'm the guy they want anyway.
I still have a young attitude. Hey, I hit 72 this year.
I was developing a passion for this business. There was no choice but to turn to the camera.
I was living in Hawaii prior to moving to Vegas. Fell in love with my current wife and came to live here.
I was never intimidated by the camera because I learned to re-focus my attention from talking to people as an audience to performing for the camera.
I was very pleased that so many of us got work on a singular project that wasn't a war movie.
I would guest on various shows. I've been very fortunate that way.
I'm awkward at these things. Just being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Karate Kid was a real surprise and I was a little uncomfortable.
I'm glad I got started because it enabled me to evolve with the acting game, quite by necessity more than anything.
I'm in semi-retirement, but what am I going to retire to? I don't ride horses, I don't golf anymore. I shoot a game of pool every now and then.
I'm not ever comfortable, and never have been, talking about myself.
I've also played some bad guys. Not killer types, but mob boss types that pushes the buttons. I had a nice role on an Australian movie that was kind of a kick.
I've been at it 40 years in show business.
I've been touched twice... with Happy Days and Karate Kid.
I've been working on my autobiography, just pecking away in longhand. The more you write, the more you remember. The more you remember, the more detail you recall. It's not all pleasant!
It takes a long time to develop a movie but, knock on wood, I seem to have gotten closer than I've ever been to it finally coming to fruition.
It was absolutely nutty, against the grain of the family, every wrong you could have picked, to be a comedian.
It was tough to find a style and develop material for myself.
It's been a career filled with very low valleys and some wonderful, high peaks.
It's still a wonder to me, the power of TV and movies.
Mostly, I've done comedic things over the years. And they can be either Chinese or Japanese or just good old American.
Mulan, being an animated feature and being Disney, was a big kick. It was a big thrill.
My project is a beautiful concept about a non-denominational man of the cloth who's comfortable in a temple, a church, a synagogue, wherever.
Myself is what you see on stage, on film or for the camera in some way, in commercials, or you-name-it. That's where I'm the most comfortable.
Of course, Karate Kid put me on the map internationally, but it's awesome to try to comprehend the number of lives you touch. I'll be on an airplane and people from Brazil come by and tell me they love my work.
One day I was an invalid. The next day I was public enemy No. 1 being escorted to an internment camp by an FBI agent wearing a piece.
Only in America could you get away with the kind of comedy I did. If I tried it in Japan before the war, it would have been considered blasphemy, and I would have ended in leg irons.
People just want to see what you look like physically. They know pretty much my performance capabilities.
Thanks to the Japanese and Geronimo, John Wayne became a millionaire.
The first Mulan took about four years from the time we first went in for a reading. It's a long process.
The idea of a Japanese comedian was not only a rarity, it was non-existent.
The Japanese couldn't have been all bad during World War II. Look at all the movies Hollywood was able to make on account of them. The Indians weren't the only bad guys.
They don't really finalize the resolution of the picture until they're really down the home stretch.
We don't go to the strip very often. Usually when friends come in and they want to hang out, have a dinner, catch a show.
We have a tendency to put the bad stuff way in the back of our heads somewhere where we hope to forget it. But it's amazing how much you still retain.
What made it exceptionally tough for me was that I didn't know how to do comedy. I could barely talk in front of people. I began slowly.
When you stop to think about it, 43 years is a long time to be doing almost anything, let alone manage a creative show business career.
You may have heard that back in the States there are some people who are smoking grass. I don't know how you feel, but it's sure easier than cutting the stuff.
He was Emperor Wei Wong in Genghis Khan.
He played Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid movie series.
He is supposed to play Tom in Angst.
Pat appeared in the movie Honeymoon in Las Vegas.
Pat recieved a star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame in 1994.
He started a Nickelodeon television series, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo.
Pat was Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi on Happy Days.
Pat graduated from Armijo High School in Fairfield, California.
Pat is a Green Bay Packers fan.
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