Carrie Preston Quotes

I saw things at an early age because my mom was a theater actress. I did a play with her when I was 10 years old.

By the time I was 10, I was doing plays for Phoenix theater. My first lead role was as the Stinky Cheese Man. I got a taste of the limelight, and I just couldn't stop. It was a way for me to be the artistic, geeky kid that I was, and not get beat up.

I started dancing at age three and then got involved in musical theatre and acting around age seven. I think I've probably known since then that I want to be a professional actor.

I did my first show when I was five and I was the King of the Oompa Loompas in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.' The kids' theater company, I was the youngest one, so there wasn't a part for me, so they made me the king of the Oompa Loompas.

I was a dancer from about the age of four, so I was always performing and forcing my parents to watch my brother and I do 'Jesus Christ Super Star' in the living room. My first step was community theater, and then I started to do films.

I started acting in my parents living room when I was five years old.

I'd say that, first and foremost, I'm a performer; I started performing when I was four years old, and being on stage from a young age set me up.

I did a play called Throne of Straw when I was 11, at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. It became really clear to me at that point that I enjoyed acting more than any other experience I was having.

If I started at 13, by the time I was 14 I was already good enough to play in front of people. I started off playing drums when I was 5, so playing in front of people didn't matter - not a problem.

What I always loved about theater is that that's an experience that a company of actors just sinks itself into for weeks, and you really get to work on the material, and by the time you're in front of an audience, you really own it.

I grew up singing since the age of three. Vocally trained since the age of eight. Fascinated by Mary Poppins and all those musical movies and really knew that I wanted to be a performer.

I loved acting, I started as a child and it is interesting because I didn't compare myself to others that were doing the same thing. I just felt that I needed to stay focused and stay out of trouble.

Live theater is just an incredibly powerful medium, and I think anyone who goes, whether they know about it or not, if they see something that sort of fits with them, it's kind of hard to deny that they had a good time.

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.

Once I'm on stage, there's just no time for a sip of water - I've always got my hands in puppets! My voice is raw by the time I finish.

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

I haven't appeared on stage in quite a long time and I don't have any immediate plans to do so, but I'm always interested in going back.

I started taking ballet lessons when I was 4, and I was performing in ballet companies when I was 10, and I did summer stock in Miami Beach when I was 12, and finally I said, 'I gotta go to Broadway.'

I was with the Jessie Bonstelle Stock Company in Detroit and Buffalo for three seasons - 10 performances and a new play every week. She was an amazing woman who did a great deal for me.

When I was very little, I was sort of consumed by a love for opera. Weirdly enough, I went from being really enthusiastic about construction vehicles at the age of seven to being really passionate about 'La Traviata' by the time I was eight.

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!'

I had done a lot of plays, particularly at my own theater in LA, and it was the first time in my theatrical life where I didn't feel that my role was also to keep everybody else working hard.

I remember clearly watching a 'Sooty Show' at a theatre and telling my mum I wanted to be up with the puppets, not in the audience.

I had my appendix removed in my 20s. I was in the middle of a play with Helen Mirren at the Royal Court Theatre, a fabulous career break. Then two weeks in I began suffering the most horrendous pain and had to pull out. Sadly, by the time I'd recovered, the show's run had ended.

When I was five I think, that's when I started wanting to be an actress.