Richard Dreyfuss Quotes

I'd always wanted to act, but it was a question of whether acting wanted me and whether the movies wanted me.

I was very fortunate that a teacher saw that I read a lot and got bored very easily and had a lot of energy, so she said, 'You've got to go to this youth theater.' I joined Manchester Youth Theatre when I was really young, and I just loved putting on and being involved in plays and telling stories.

Little by little, when I was doing auditions in New York, I discovered I was good. People there were enthusiastic.

I used to rap as a kid and people were impressed by it, so it gave me the drive to keep going. Everybody has at least one talent. I guess this is my talent.

I wasn't originally taking drama, but the drama teacher asked me to audition for Bye, Bye Birdie. I did and got the lead role. Initially I was kind of scared, but once I did it I got bitten by the bug and loved it.

I think at the age I'm at, it's really hard for a film career, and I'm at a point in my life where I thought it would be a good idea to be a part of a good show and to be able to finish school.

I was never really sure what I wanted to do - I'm in awe of these people who knew at age 10 or 12 they wanted to be a brain surgeon, and they did it, and they still are.

You can fail in films because you don't have the talent, or you have too much humility, or you lack ferociousness. I'm a gangster. If I want something, I'll grab it.

I like to learn about things. I could learn about business, which I knew nothing about. Since the age of 7, I wanted to be a doctor and nothing else.

Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, I did not choose acting; acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted.

At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even how I replied that I wanted to be a poet.

I still don't know what I'm going to be. I love acting. I would love to be an English teacher. I would love to be a housewife and have a chateau in the South of France, I would love to be a singer that travels to cafes around different towns.

I went to college for one semester, and I took every subject I could, and I ended up failing. So I thought to myself, Ever since I was a kid, I've loved expression - and that's when I started thinking about acting.

A Latin teacher told me I might make a good actress, and that stuck in my memory. I did some modeling, and Polanski gave me that small part.

My dad was an actor and a writer; my mum was a drama teacher. My grandma was an actress. My aunt is an actress. My granddad was a cameraman. They would've been surprised if I wanted to be a dentist or something like that.

Wanting to be an actor and wanting to be famous are different.

I knew at an early age I wanted to act. Acting was always easy for me. I don't believe in predestination, but I do believe that once you get where ever it is you are going, that is where you were going to be.

I was a very confident child. I knew I wanted to be an actress from the age of 5.

I wasn't like a Hollywood child actor - 'I'm five! I can sing, I can dance, I can act! I wanna be a star!'

The thing I always thought of myself as was an actress. I never thought: 'I want to be.' It was always: 'I am.'

I didn't really know I wanted to act when I was a child. I have a lot of interests, and I really wanted to finish my education - go to college - and didn't really want to have a career as an adolescent.

You really have to be ambitious and have that drive to really become well known and successful as a standup.

When I was able to go to school in my early years, my third grade teacher, Ms. Harris, convinced me that one day I would be a writer. I heard her, but I knew that I had to leave Georgia, and unlike my friend Ray Charles, I did not go around with 'Georgia on My Mind.'

The very first show I did was 'Fame L.A.' Everyone had talent... it was either dancing or acting or something like that. I was a singer, so I got my first role.

Encouragement from my high school teacher Patty Hart said 'you need to focus and theater might be your route out of here.' I created the program, went to college and graduate school and now here I am.