Wendi McLendon-Covey Quotes

It's very important to stay creative and not simply to wait around for people to want you. It's the hardest thing about the business.

I definitely feel like I'm at that point where it's nice to not have to sit at home and wait to be invited to the party, but to be creating work for yourself.

Instead of waiting around for someone to give you a job, you have to go and create work for yourself. It took me a while to figure that out for myself.

Write and create as much as you can, because if you're sitting around waiting for someone to give you a well-round, interesting, incredible role on a silver platter, you're going to be a real cute skeleton covered in cobwebs when that happens.

You have to constantly be doing something and not just wait for someone to call you with an opportunity, you have to develop your own projects.

Why I'm so stimulated by [producing] is it becomes more proactive. Instead of waiting around for a script to come in, or some movie trying to go. You're waiting around always for that opportunity, which is great, but I like to be a little bit more proactive. I'm a very action-oriented guy - I'm a doer. The company really became this spearhead for that sort of attitude, and so that, to me, was the most exciting part of it.

Everyone has ideas. They may be too busy or lack the confidence or technical ability to carry them out. But I want to carry them out. It is a matter of getting up and doing it.

Rather than wait to be discovered, discover yourself. Whatever it is that you intend to do later, start doing it now, get good at it, and show people what you've done. Actions speak louder than words.

At a young age I always had an entrepreneurial spirit. So I'm trying to develop things on my own, too, and there are a couple things that have absolutely nothing to do with the entertainment business that I'm trying to tackle. We'll just sort of see.

Waiting to be hired, as an actor, especially, is soul-destroying... There is always something you can do... Create something, a play reading... Anything. But don't rely on other people to come to you. Put yourself out there.

I only got to be able to act, because I gave myself a job as a producer.

I like to work; I like to be creative. I work in the entertainment industry where work may come up, and it may not, so I wanted to do something proactive. I've got a brain; I don't want to just sit at home - I want to do as much as I can.

From an acting perspective, I would say that you should always try to make your own stuff. Always be ambitious about your own projects and always know better than anyone else what you're good at.

If there aren't roles you want to play, then you've kind of got to create them.

I've learned over the years that the best way to develop as an artist is to make things. So I tell young artists it's not enough to be an actor anymore, you have to be a filmmaker/writer/director. There's no excuse for waiting around for a job. You have to be active and make things.

If the opportunities are not being presented to me, I'm going to take the reins and do it. Brit Marling was not waiting for the phone to ring. The great roles are not there to be had. If you have an idea, do it.

Before the work comes to you, you have to invent work.

I'm a great believer in not sitting around waiting for the right part to come around, but jumping in and building it for yourself.

As soon as I became proactive in producing my own stuff, I started getting other roles.

There's not always going to be something out there for you, especially not a positive role, so once you get up there and start being well known, you can't just think projects will come to you. You have to start doing your own projects because if you don't, you'll miss out, and eventually your fame will be over.

Be a creator, not just sitting on the sidelines waiting for someone to call you into the game or call our number.

The lack of available, good work inspires a lot of people to be self-creating.

No matter how commonplace or dull your first job's duties seem, chances are you can find something to do that others don't want to and make it your own.

You can go out and produce and make a name for yourself.

You don't know when things are going to happen, so I don't think you should be waiting around for them, so I'm interested in making stuff and being in that stuff - that's what my focus is.