Leonardo DiCaprio Quotes

I'm happy with my career and I'm not going to have the trouble of being typecast.

I just thought acting would be something to help out with my student loans, but my first year as an actress, I made more money than my parents. That's when I realized it could turn into a career. After that, I put everything I had into it.

If people offer me decent roles in good films, of course I'll take it. But I just didn't like the actor lifestyle. You end up focusing all your energy on trying to get parts you don't even want.

Did I think I'd ever be in television shows that people would see or movies? No. But I knew that I was going to be an actor.

There are two kinds of actors: those with one job too few, who have to take every one that comes along, and those with one job too many, who can always turn down the one they don't want.

I hope to make acting my career for the rest of my life, if I can. If acting doesn't work out, I'd love to produce or direct or write. I just want to stay in this business, definitely. That would be my number one thing. I always want to be an actress.

It just seemed like an unattainable dream to go down to Los Angeles and to land a professional working, acting gig on a show that you really love with a character you really connect with. That doesn't seem possible; that seems insane.

I just felt like actors - I watched a lot of 'SNL,' and those guys just seemed like they were superheroes - that that wasn't a reality for anyone other than people with superhuman strength. So, I mean, I acted a little bit in high school, but the idea of doing it professionally was just never really an option.

I did school plays, and then, at the age of 18, I applied to drama school in London, and I got in. I've been very lucky that no one so far has stopped me from being able to live my dream - the industry or my parents.

Early on, when I first started acting professionally, it was really important for me to get my parents on board, because they were so against it.

I was blessed with my career. I passionately love acting. And it's given me a good livelihood.

I'd been playing the piano since I was 6 and wanted to be a composer, but I also wanted to be an actor. I decided to just pursue both and see which won out.

I never even knew I would end up becoming an actor. It was coincidental for me. Once I did it, I realised it's what I really want to do.

The actor's life isn't for everyone, but it has been extremely rewarding to me.

I realized on my first day on set of 'Miss Potter' that there wasn't going to be anything else that could make me as happy or feel as fulfilled as acting does.

'EastEnders' changed everything. I was a jobbing actress living in Stepney, and I was on the dole at one point. Then people started to send me scripts, which was always my dream.

I've always been selective about my roles.

I'm very fortunate now in that I have my first love, which is drama and acting, for a living and I'm also managing to go racing as well.

I wanted to direct more than I wanted to act. And I found I couldn't do everything.

If it wasn't for 'Kill Bill' I probably would have been back in New Zealand three months after I left, and if it wasn't for 'Death Proof' I don't think I would be pursuing an acting career right now.

There are so many dramatic actors where I would give all of my anything to have their careers, but I don't think I can try to follow anyone.

My career has suddenly started to be the one that I'd always wanted, not in terms of level of success, but in terms of - and this is what I've been banging on about - playing different parts in different media. I was very frustrated, in a physical sense, by people seeing me in a way that I wasn't. And I was beginning to find myself boxed into a corner. Hopefully things have loosed up a bit, and I've gotten better and become more relaxed as an actor.

My father wanted to be an actor, dreamed about being an actor, but he gave it up because my mom and his family told him, "You're never going to make it; it's too tough out there."

I'm glad to be an actor to be employed by people who are now 12, probably. I look forward to that.

I would never accept a role that wasn't going to stretch me or challenge me in some way. I'd say Holy Smoke! probably did that more than anything I'd ever done. It took me to places I didn't actually know I could go to, and that's what I want my career to be all about.