Ari Shaffir Quotes

I began my career in Los Angeles and started working fairly quickly.

It's a tough journey as an actor in Los Angeles.

Living in L.A., I was embarrassed to say that I wanted to be an actor.

When I was 23, I went to work for Jack Nicholson reading scripts. Later, I was married to a production designer named Richard Sylbert. So I lived in Los Angeles for ten years.

I watched a lot of movies when I was younger and I remember, when I was seven years old, I asked my parents if I could have an agent for Christmas.

My father is an actor, so he brought me into his agency when I was young. It wasn't something I wanted to do until high school, when I started taking theater and really liked it. Then an agent found me and wanted me to come out to Los Angeles and give it a shot. I gave myself six months, but it only took me like a week to get a job.

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. I lived in Grand Blanc, Michigan for a year and that's when I got involved in acting and took classes there. A manager who saw me at the agency I was at in Michigan wanted me to come out to L.A.

I always wanted to be an actress. I always wanted to be a movie star.

Nowadays, kids... young actors... they go straight to L.A. before they've even done anything.

L.A. is full of screenwriters. I don't know why. On many levels, it's such a thankless occupation.

The William Morris Agency handled me. In that business, you're only as good as your last picture.

When I'm in Los Angeles, sometimes I hesitate saying that I'm an actor because people are like, 'Of course you are.' And I'm like 'No,' not, 'Of course I am.' In L.A., being an actor is like a pastime: everybody there is like, 'I was on this reality show; I'm an actor.' It becomes a word that is loosely thrown around.

I don't live in Los Angeles. I work in Los Angeles, and even that - I audition in Los Angeles; I very rarely film in Los Angeles. I don't hang out with producers on my off-hours, so I don't even know what that world is like.

When I moved to Los Angeles to be on the radio, there was an acting school on every corner. You can't be in L.A. and not be into acting.

Everyone out here in Los Angeles is trying to do whatever to break into films. It is a tough industry to get into, kind of like pro wrestling in a lot of respects when you think about it.

I think for a lot of people, acting becomes a lifestyle, especially when you're living in Los Angeles.

It's not like you do 'SNL' and then get handed movie roles. You work, you audition for stuff and try to get it. I think, a lot of people, it's the goal to be in movies or just to be working in general. But yeah, some of us get lucky and get some movie roles, and it's nice.

I'm not one of those actors where filmmakers that I admire ask me to be in their movies. I meet them at parties and they're nice to me, but they never ask me to work with them.

I said, going into acting, 'I'm never moving to L.A.,' because it scared me. But there was no way you could build an acting career in Orange County.

Trying to constantly get yourself into movies is extremely stressful and sometimes just impossible.

I moved to LA and decided to do films and television, mainly because the theater in New York is totally dead.

In L.A., if you're in improv, and you're on those stages, all the big agents and managers and producers are watching those shows. They're not flying to Chicago to see the show. People are booking jobs off the stages in L.A. who aren't more talented than the guys in Chicago. But the most guys book out of L.A., and the second is New York.

I think you have to really, really want to be a film star.

And when I have lived elsewhere, every two weeks I have to fly back to LA. Even New York directors go there to audition. So I have to be there to a degree.

After high school, I drove out to L.A. with a friend of mine who had just graduated also, and I started auditioning. I got an agent, but it was all 'Saved By the Bell' auditions.