Nicola Walker Quotes

When I first got out of drama school, my original manager tried to get me to change my name because people were having trouble spelling it and saying it.

I didn't have the money to put myself through drama school, so I thought - naively - that if I wrote a play and put it on at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, agents would see me and that would be my ticket to Hollywood. I wrote a musical; an acting coach saw it and put me on his course for free while I wrote for his company.

I'm not sure I'll find acting satisfying creatively forever. If you get the good roles, it's great - if you have the freedom to choose your projects and not just do anything and everything.

I didn't act professionally before going to drama school. I don't know if I had the confidence. I didn't think I'd get in when I first auditioned for drama school, and then I did.

When I left drama school, there were dozens of rep theatres you could apply to where you got a good training.

You're a smaller fish in the U.S. There's just so many more TV shows, and actors, and actresses. Where as in the U.K. you're in a much smaller market there.

So I think that in the beginning of your career you're just looking to work. Luckily for me, my first movie was 'Rabbit Hole' and I got to work with incredible people, a Pulitzer prize winning writer, John Cameron Mitchell, and all the actors involved. So it's tough, man, because you want to have credibility.

I have been reading scripts, going to auditions and looking for the right opportunities.

My advice is to make acting your second career choice.

I've really enjoyed my three years at 'Hollyoaks.' I worked with the most amazing people.

I can't say there were parts I was offered and turned down, but there were meetings for parts that I didn't go to, meetings I should have gone to, meetings I was advised against going to. I listened to that advice.

I graduated from the University of Oklahoma, and I got the opportunity to take some on-camera classes while I was in school and met a casting director who informed me quite a bit before my move out to L.A.; it made L.A. feel possible, coming from Oklahoma and not having a family that was in the industry.

I figured most of the best actors around 20 years old would all be at drama school, where they're tied up and contractually can't work, so I saw there must be a gap in the market for a young actor like me.

My acting career began when I walked into a drama school class run by Anna Scher in Islington. Anna discovered a lot of people: Linda Robson, Pauline Quirke, Gary and Martin Kemp, and Dexter Fletcher were among my contemporaries.

Every week, I take two phone calls or meetings with an aspiring producer or director.

I don't do a lot of strategizing, career-wise. I was approached by Chris and Phil, the guys who did 'The Lego Movie.' They gave me my first job on 'Clone High.' We've been friends forever, and they asked me if I wanted to write something with them.

I had told my agents that I didn't want to do television. I can't believe I had that gall, looking back on it. I would never condescend to do TV, and then 'Taxi' called up for a guest spot in the first season. And my common sense kind of took over, I guess.

I'm always in the market for my acting.

Shonda Rhimes, especially, saw something in me that no one had and then wrote to my strengths for 'Grey's Anatomy.' That's the job I think really opened up a whole new world for me.

The Internet is part of my job, so I have to approach it with a level of professionalism. I don't necessarily think it's changed who I am, but if anything, it's impacted the opportunities that have come into my life and the people that I've been able to develop relationships with - which I'm very fortunate and thankful for.

Everything that ever happened to me in my career, Trump was the first guy to pick up the phone and reach out to me.

My tips for any budding actors would be to go out and see as much as you possibly can. Find the people you want to work with and be ready to hopefully make them want to work with you.

There were so many people after that first 'Colbert Report' interview that were impressed by the synergy we had during the interview. People everywhere we'd go would say, 'You should be the bandleader; it would be great for jazz. It would be great for the music.' But I was completely against it.

I've always known of ROH and have worked with a lot of the workers there, but they've never reached out to me. It's just never happened. But I'm always open to everything.

I don't have an agent. The only work I get is through friendships that I've already built.