Dustin Nguyen

Dustin: (on getting injured in a fight scene on V.I.P.) The fellow I was fighting was a good friend of mine. We try to kick each other's legs out. On the fourth take, we were coming down from being airborne and he landed on top of my foot! My weight crashed to the inside and the knee collapsed. From the knee down, nothing could move, so the knee snapped out of the joint ... there was this explosion of pain. Of course my friend, who I was fighting with, felt awful! They rushed me to the emergency room and Angela [Dustin's wife] was there.

Dustin: (on being a teen idol on 21 Jump Street) Well, it was the second season of the show, and all this fan mail would come in. I remember we made our first public appearance for a photograph session inside a mall, and, you know, it was out of control. I've never experienced anything like that before. When we came out, people were screaming and totally going ballistic. People were saying, "Oh, I idolize you," and, you know, that's great. What's not great about that? But what's so confusing is that no one teaches you how to react to things like this. Johnny [Depp] was obviously the real heartthrob of the show, but the guys on the show were a tight-knit group so there was no rivalry. We all just felt, "Geez, people love us." And, for me, people said, "Wow, it's great to see an Asian on TV." And I thought that was great too.

Dustin: (on acting) I like the feeling of being able to express myself in a way that I normal couldn't as a person, because intrinsically I'm very shy. Acting opened up a lot of emotional discovery for me in terms of who I am as a person. I'm a lot more comfortable, playing a character. To me, it's about the study of the self and how you relate to another human being.