Sydney Pollack Quotes

My plan was to be able to make a living as an actor.

When you're lucky enough to pay your bills through acting, staying healthy and fit is part of the job.

I'm one of the luckiest people in the world that I was able to do what I fell in love with and be able to make a living doing it.

I look at all these wonderful actors who are out of work, and I don't know what accounts for my good fortune, but I'm grateful for it.

I've been incredibly lucky. I know what it's like to be an unemployed actor, to beat the bricks. I've been in the right place at the right time.

I always call myself the luckiest actor in the world because I made a living solely as a performer from the time I left home at 17 years old.

I've been an actor since I was 18. So that's my proper job. But I was not a very successful actor, if you consider being able to afford your rent successful. I did lots of old people's tours; reminiscence tours.

It's important for me as an actor to be able to make a living.

I don't think I could ever describe myself as unlucky because people would look at me, playing football for a living, and say: 'Are you winding me up?'

There was a point in time where I was doing movies to be able to afford to live in a certain way.

I've been very lucky in the characters I've chosen. Up until last year I was a nobody. I did jobs I booked because I needed to put food in my mouth.

Knock wood, but I started acting professionally when I was 16, and I've always been able to support myself since then.

I still do commercial work as an actor, which I love, because it's very quick, and it definitely pays my bills.

I'm lucky I get to work a lot.

My goal was just to work regularly. I didn't ever expect to be rich or famous. I wanted to be a working character actor.

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.

You know, when you choose to make your living as an actor, it's all fine and good to look at it as some kind of artistic endeavor. At its best, it is that. But the fact is, most of the actors out there don't earn $3 million a picture and can't afford to take two years off between films and look for the right thing. Most of us are tradesmen.

I've never had to turn my hand to anything for monetary gain, other than pretending to be somebody else. I'm deeply fortunate.

I was never a struggling actor, for which I feel very blessed.

I just wanted to be a guy who could earn a living as an actor, and I did that for a long time.

At the end of drama school, I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting is: a small business.

I've managed to catch lightning in a bottle a couple times. I'm very lucky. But I want to do this forever. I enjoy it so much. One of the challenges as an actor is to stay relevant.

I'm very lucky. I do voiceovers, 'Family Guy,' on and on, and quite frankly, I'm one of the luckiest actors in the world. I was able to create a character who became iconic.

My father has been an actor since 1964. Things were tight a lot of the times, financially. It wasn't like a big romantic adventure.

I feel that I have been very fortunate and had the opportunity to play some wonderful roles and movies and worked with some great talent.