Mark Gatiss Quotes

I am constantly visible in TV shows because anybody who is thinking of a role sees me performing on TV and may say, 'Why not him?' That way I am always in the limelight. It's better than running around for good roles. I can't lobby for roles.

Any actor who tells you that he makes choices, absolutely, is wrong. You find work and work finds you.

I won't say I've closed the door on acting.

I'm on the list that I thought I'd never be on. I'm not sitting here thinking, 'God, I might get this part' or 'is it too late for me to play Hamlet?' It's really about: who do I get to work with? There's so many people on that list.

I'm not being offered a constant stream of wonderful parts with wonderful directors that would keep me away from the theatre. When they turn up, I do them.

If I get the opportunity to be an actor and do some cool, fun and interesting projects, I'm going to do that.

By the way, movies are like sporting events in that you're as good as the movie you're in. You can sit in a room for 20 years and go do a movie and you can just kill in it and you move to the head of the line again. By the same token, you can do five movies a year and if they're dreck, it's nothing.

In the States, you have a little bit of freedom to audition for different kinds of roles.

I made the decision to take acting seriously after high school.

People were confused by me, and at first I was auditioning a lot for the crazy characters or the victim, someone who'd been attacked. Which is great, because usually those are the best acting roles.

When actors first come up, you're auditioning for everything - you're trying to sniff it out like a pig with a truffle and you would do anything!

The thing about acting is that it's fairly random. At the end of the day you take what drifts past you or what's given to you.

Before 'Grey's Anatomy,' I was doing musicals, plays, commercials, you name it.

If you're a young actor, unless you're on a very short list at the studios, we have to be very creative about moving your career along. Otherwise, all we can do is hope to get lucky and find that perfect role that pops you into stardom.

I hadn't really thought about doing any acting at all post-'Center Stage.'

It wasn't like I ever said, 'I want to be an actor.' I was in the right place at the right time. I went to a local drama group because I found football on the weekends too cold - which is highly ironic because I've had some of the coldest experiences of my life filming 'Game of Thrones.'

It's mainly been the case where I do very few live action roles - not out of choice but more out of not getting asked.

I'm auditioning for anything that's good that comes my way.

Ninety percent of my roles, I've had to fight for. It's only a really small percentage of people who get handed roles.

People get the wrong idea. They think because somebody's visible and works to a degree in some kind of consistent way, they just have a pile of choices. And that's not necessarily true. You can always choose not to audition and see what happens. Sometimes that's a benefit. But most things that I do, I meet on, especially films.

I've always known I wanted to be an actress. I didn't know quite how I was going to get there because I come from a small town called Simpsonville, South Carolina.

I'm always in the market for my acting.

I auditioned for 'Mad Men.' I auditioned for 'Top of the Lake.' I obviously auditioned for 'West Wing,' so I still get excited when I get offered stuff. Like, a part of me thinks, 'They think I can do it! That's awesome!' And that's a part of me I have to squash; otherwise, I would do everything just because people gave it to me.

A lot of actresses start out modeling because it's a great way to sort of get your foot in the door. That's all it is, though. They open the door, and you have to walk through it.

When I got out of college, I moved to Seattle because it was the nearest big city and still didn't know if I wanted to be a composer, conductor, singer, actor. I just got day jobs and auditioned and took what came, and the theater doors were the ones opening the most.