One second you're on a squeaky-clean Canadian soap, the next moment you're in high heels and panties in a Maxim shoot.

I wasn't like 18, where it was sending off sparks and it was taboo, you know how the American public likes to do that. The show's publicist one day called and said, "Would you be interested in doing Maxim?" And I said, "Do I get the cover?" And she said no. And I said, "Hell yeah!" So she broke it down and I was really happy with it. And that helped me get "Cleaner." Not that I was dressing like that — but it put a different image in people's heads.

When we know you as someone in an armor bodysuit, it does change the perspective on you.

Just look at media, and how they like to do headlines. You want to catch people's attention. Eh, I dunno! It happened to work. Some people will go further than others.

Are there points where you've sat down with your professionals and said, "OK, what do I do? How do I get to where I want to be?"

Not really! At that point I only had one, if you want to say "people," I only had an agent. I didn't have anyone in L.A. — I had an agent in Vancouver. And meanwhile I know people in the States collect a dozen people. Talking to my castmates, they say, "Oh, my financial manager, publicist, manager, agent" — there are so many. . . . I think I actually follow my gut a little bit more. If there was a Jim Carrey movie? For sure I'd want to be in it. We have our lists. I just haven't hit too many of those [...]

You would think we were, on the coasts, a nation of hedonist atheists. You know, all those godless gays and Jews in Hollywood.

There's a lot of Jewish people in L.A. and I didn't know that! I was like, "Jewfro? What's a Jewfro?" And half the people were laughing. I was like, "What are you guys in on?" What's matzo ball soup? What's actually in it? Everybody just knows, right? I was like, "Is it meat? Is it flour?" I just had my first a few months ago.

[Ah, Choire. Always with the gay Jews. Read the rest of the interview here.]

[Complex via OhNoTheyDidn't]

"West 32nd" takes the cameras inside New York's gritty Korean underworld. After hustling his way onto a homicide case, attorney John Kim (Cho) finds himself thrust into a sordid world of hard realities and moral compromises after he is taken under the wing of a ruthless Korean gangster who knows no limits.