William Baldwin Quotes

To make money in New York, you have to add gigs when starting out, so while I was acting quite a bit, I would do modeling.

After I finished school, I headed for Los Angeles, thinking, 'Movies. Beaches.' But I wanted to do serious stage work, so I upped sticks and moved to New York to study. I did the usual day jobs to support myself - waiting on tables, washing dishes, parking cars, anything to pay the rent. I was a terrible waiter, by the way.

I started working at the age of 2, doing commercials and modeling in New York.

I didn't act in school. I didn't study acting, either. I learned everything when I got to New York.

And so I was doing that and starving and somebody said you should model and I ran when they told me how much money you could make and I did a television commercial the first job.

I've been chasing some paychecks. Modeling. I don't discriminate against paychecks. I've got to pay the bills.

I think I'll be fine in New York. If I could stay here and just get jobs in New York, that would be fine and that's what I'd want to do. I don't want to move.

I was modeling since I was four and acting in commercials since I was five - this was when I was in New York. I then moved to LA when I was 16... but before that I had done a play on Broadway.

I came to New York with $500 and I had to live on that, but thankfully I was taken up by photographers quickly.

I was 14 when I started modeling. At the end of that first day my mum said, If you want to do this, you're on your own because I'm not traipsing around London ever again like that. It's a nightmare.

All that running around in my underwear put money in my pockets. I can focus on working in interesting movies without having to worry about supporting myself.

I never pictured myself in California. I just thought I would be a character actress in New York on the stage. I never really had that stardom goal; I just wanted to be able to work as an actress and not as a waitress.

Being an actor is just like being any other sort of self-employed person - we're all just happy to have a job in the first place, but we also thrive off the uncertainty of it.

I got a job when I was 15 because my allowance was about $20 a week which in New York was impossible. So I used to waitress across the street from where I grew up.

I came from Texas, I was studying theater at NYU, and I thought for sure that my lot in life would be to get the best bartending job I could find and do theater in New York. And that was a good life.

Even when I was a teen model, I didn't think it was fair that I had to enter the acting world to get insurance.

In White Plains I wasn't theatrical at all. I was a model and I used to take the train into New York three days a week to do travelogue work.

Acting wasn't some long-held dream, and it still isn't, really. I'm just trying to make some money and pay the bills.

I held down as many jobs as I could find, from being a waiter to working at a yoga studio and as a ticket-taker at a small theater company - anything that would allow me to go out and do auditions.

For me, my 20s were all about reaching for the brass ring of work in theater, television, and film, surviving in between by waiting tables, painting houses, serving coffee, and temping.

I had saved a lot of money working at Mrs. Fields' Chocolate Chip Cookies, ushering at the Golden Gate Theatre, and doing odd jobs so I could live in New York for a few months. If it ran out, I would have to give up and go home. It turned out OK. I got my Equity card and started working.

It's really hard to make a living as an actor. I'm grateful as I drive to work every morning.

I came to New York in 1974, when I graduated from college. And you had to use 'Backstage' because all of the auditions were listed there. Most people didn't come with agents, so you got to see a lot of what was auditioning and when and where. 'Backstage' made sure you knew the major places.

I worked at Ruby Foos early on as a host. I was only there for a little bit, but I had several odd jobs to pay the bills before that. And being in New York for the first year, I got here in 2003, and it was a very exciting but very scary time not knowing how you would make ends meet and me trying to meet people.

For a long time after I left 'Bonanza,' I was considered too independent. That meant I got the rejects other actors could afford turning down. I did theater which I loved, but it cannot pay the bills.