 Although accepted to Harvard, he instead decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue acting.He later changed his last name from Valdez to Lee, stating in a 2001 interview that "they kept calling me in for Hispanic roles, and I'm a far cry from Hispanic"; he took the name Lee from his grandparents.In 1992, at the age of 17, Lee moved to Los Angeles, where he joined a national tour of "Miss Saigon".