Nell Newman Quotes

It took me a long time to find out that I was born to be an actor. It was the last thing on my list, although my list was very small. I didn't know what to do. But kids weren't supposed to know what to do back then; we were all cute and we'd find out what we'd do later in life.

I don't have an exact moment when I decided I wanted to be an actress - it kind of was just really a part of my growing up.

At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer.

I was nine years old when I made up my mind that that was what I definitely wanted to do.

Kids are always asked, What are you going to be when you grow up? I needed an answer. So instead of saying, a fireman, or a policeman, I said, a reporter.

If you're suddenly doing something you don't want to do for four years, just so you've got something to fall back on, by the time you come out you don't have that 16-year-old drive any more and you'll spend your life doing something you never wanted to do in the first place.

I think I needed rather than wanted to be an actor. There is not another way to put it.

I didn't grow up, really, in the film business, even though my parents are both artists. I grew up in New York City. They would never put me into acting. I just kind of wanted it, and I told them that.

Given my family background, whenever, as a child, I was asked about becoming an actor, I used to answer in the negative.

I realised that acting is not my god.

I don't have any love for this business or the game or for acting. This is my day job.

I grew up skateboarding, but I don't even do that anymore.

Only be an actor if you can't be happy doing anything else. I don't think you should be an actor if you want to be actor. I think you should be an actor if you have to be an actor.

I always knew I wanted to be an actor, certainly from the age of eight or nine. I think when you know what you want to do, you're very lucky because you've got a focus.

By the time I was twelve, I had started my own theater company and was doing plays in the backyard and the front yard and all over the neighborhood, so, you know, I was definitely a lifer even back when I was 10.

It dawned on me that acting was what I wanted to do with my life. Nothing had ever touched my heart like acting did.

By the time I was 7, I did walk-ons, catalogue modeling, you name it. In the Queens where I grew up, you didn't go bowling on Saturday; you went to dancing school.

I considered becoming a priest very seriously. I wanted to travel the world. By the time I turned 16, I realized I was only in it for selfish reasons. And, more importantly, I didn't want to sacrifice the ladies!

How little is the promise of the child fulfilled in the man.

I don't think I would ever have been able to be an actress had I not started at nine years old.

I've always known that performing is what I want to do. There was never a defining moment. I just came out that way.

I think I always wanted to be an actor - sounds a bit boring, doesn't it? And I pretended once that I wanted to be a vet because one of the teachers asked me and saying you want to be an actor sounds a little bit silly. And I do still feel a bit silly saying it. You feel a bit fraudulent.

When I was a preteen, I got into singing, and became really obsessed with it. But then, of course, that didn't work out.

I knew what I wanted to do from the time I was 5.

I was the teenage kid growing up in New Jersey watching the Tony Awards and thinking, 'Oh, maybe if I'm lucky I'll make it to Broadway by the time I'm 40!'