Mel Smith Quotes

I love acting, but being an actor for hire only serves so much, and then you want to fill your well up again and be charged by something else.

I love directing. It's something I started doing in theatre when I was in university in Chicago and I started a theatre company right out of college and was directing for many years.

If I could really move my career much more into predominantly directing, I would jump at that.

My father was in the ad business, and he wanted to be a painter.

I naively thought I would quit television writing, move up to Seattle, my novel would come out, and then I'd have a novel writing career, and so I found myself really stuck in this very poisonous self-pitying state and felt like I'd never write again. And I blamed Seattle for that.

My first pilot gig, in fact my first job in television, was 'Freaks and Geeks,' and the experience of directing that pilot was probably the single most formative of my directing life.

I started as a director and just fell upon acting.

My career is chequered. Then I think I got pigeon-holed in humour; Shakespeare is not my thing.

For years in football I was angry with the game, angry with pundits and, a lot of the time, angry with the journalists writing about me. All that changed when I got my break in movies.

The only reason my work seems to be eclectic up to a certain period is because I was a failure as an actor.

Now I'm a painter. That was another opportunity I was able to pursue, I've been painting all my life, now it's become a second career because of my success in the movies.

I had been a ballet dancer and never could make a living, and just being so excited that I got to, all of a sudden, live as an actor.

I must say that when I left 'Doctor Who,' I was filled with... not loathing, but I was incredibly annoyed because I wanted to do more television and films and the only thing that people could ever see me in was a recreation of what I had done.

The acting was first. As a teenager I was an actress; and then I came back as a singer.

I honestly don't want to act anymore.

After I did television, I just felt I didn't have any more to give to the medium. And so I went back to the theatre and started directing and producing, and found I enjoyed it as much, if not more, than acting.

I started in theatre; the first bit of drama I did was amateur dramatics, up until I was 19. Then the TV and film opportunities came along, but now I was just ready to come back.

Fashion gave me my start, and that will always be my home. I'll always be so grateful for all my collaborators and friends I've made there, but I'm so excited to dive head first into just being a working actor.

My career, it's been a mess.

I started out doing the acting, and there was always an interest in music, and then the music just took off.

I'm a busy girl, and I've been switching gears from telly and putting my heart and soul into music.

When I graduated, I sort of went from school to being a cartoonist, and I couldn't draw.

I enjoy doing standup, but when I'm 50, I don't know if I'll still enjoy doing standup. It might be one of those things where I find other palettes that I want to paint on and make comedic.

Once I get to a certain level, I don't want to rap all my life.

You know what, I stopped doing 'Mind of Mencia' because it got hard, and there was a lot of fighting, and it was just time to move on.