Amber Valletta Quotes

Doing modeling was a fun thing for me. At a young age, being able to earn was exciting. I got to work with some very talented designers and models. But there was always a yearning in me to do something more.

Italy was a surprise in my life. I went there just to make money and then go back to Israel and study psychology. The arts wasn't something I grew up with or thought I could be part of.

What I find relatively funny is that I'm not a model. I'm five foot six and a half; I have absolutely no dream or desire to be a model, I don't live for fashion. But when an opportunity comes your way very early in your career, like Burberry, you do it.

After I left LA... it was like waking up. And so I moved back east and stopped auditioning.

The National Youth Theatre did one very simple but incredible thing for me: it made me realise I had choices.

I was picked up on a London street by a model agent. She took me to her office and then sent me to Paris to work in shows. It was supposed to be two weeks, but I ended up living there with my Zimbabwean boyfriend. I made enough money modeling and acting in French movies to buy a nice flat.

I've seen kids turn their lives around. It's usually a kid who's outside of the team-sport world, or maybe has a darker personality or doesn't fit in. Skateboarding ends up being something they latch onto. It sounds hokey, but finding a focus on something - whether it's skateboard or playing your guitar - can be life changing.

I moved from New Zealand to Melbourne when I was 17. I'd planned to go to university to study French, but I was offered a contract to write and record an album that was too good to pass up. Looking back now I think that was pretty young but, at the time, I was ready to have an adventure.

When I was 14, I entered British Vogue's annual talent contest and got a special mention. I went up to London to meet the editors and wrote about it in my high school magazine.

The very first role I ever played was as a 17-year old South African girl who dreamed of being a star and left home to meet her mother in the big city so that she could pursue that dream. I left South Africa and met my mother in Vancouver and not long after that was given the opportunity to perform on the stage and have people chant my name.

Teens are passionate, questioning, curious, have a bit of the idealism I still cling to, and they're making decisions for the first time that can alter the course of their lives - and sometimes, the course of the world.

It was only when I began modeling at 18 that I really began enjoying fashion and reading any fashion magazine I could get my hands on, and developing a profound respect for designers, fashion and how to wear it.

I really saw myself as the quintessential Cinderella. I think that's when I really thought about how I wanted to do something else and get away from all that.

I think I was lucky I got into art college. That's what saved me.

You can have a spiritual awakening and discover a new side of you at any age. And best of all, love can happen at any age. Life can just start to get exciting when you're in your 40s and 50s. You have to believe that.

I thought if I went somewhere where I didn't know anybody and they didn't know me I could start all over again.

I went to college because I didn't have anywhere else to go and it was a fabulous hang. And while I was there I was exposed to this world that I didn't know was possible.

I've left Bethlehem, and I feel free. I've left the girl I was supposed to be, and some day I'll be born.

The way some papers write about me, you'd think I was some kind of gold digger. The truth is, I've always earned my own money. Before I became a model in Europe, I even worked in a bakery store - for $1.50 an hour. It's a big jump from a bakery store to driving a Mercedes in California, but I'm the same person inside.

You're really lucky as an artist if you get a role that changes you as a person.

I was tall and skinny, and at 15, I was approached to model. I figured that models got to travel, and it became my ticket to travel so much so that if an agency could not fly me to another country, I would fly on my cost so that I could see that country and also make some money.

Having life taken away from you for a little while forces you to be more open-minded and to go live.

I got into the industry after Miss India, but I actively started modeling in 2010. I never even dreamed that a simple girl like me could act, let alone become an actress. Slowly, as I started giving acting a shot, I realised how much I enjoyed it and how happy it makes me.

I was born in California and moved around a lot. When I was 17, I moved to Boston because my mom got a job there. The moment I went to Boston, everything just felt right and fell into place on how I wanted it to be.

Everyone's said I exploded in 2018 and, honestly, that's how it feels. It's been the best year of my life.