Wallace Shawn Quotes

In high school ethics, they went around and asked what everyone thought their classmates were qualified to do. For me, everyone said actress. But to me it was very much 'if it happens, it happens.'

Acting is something that I always wanted, but I never paid attention to the notion that it might actually work out. You have all sorts of ideas about what you want to do - at one stage, I wanted to be a jockey - but this is the one that's a big deal.

I didn't want to escape my life and become a big actress and live my dreams. That was never the way it was; it was just these amazing opportunities that happened.

If things had gone according to my plans, I'd be a lawyer. I never dreamt of being an actress.

People ask my mother whether she had any idea that I'd be CEO of a company some day, and she would say, 'Absolutely not. Totally out of the realm of possibility.' There was certainly nothing that would have been very predictable in my upbringing.

I remember when I was little, much younger than I was when I started modeling, people always said, 'Oh, you should be a model.' But I didn't like people telling me what to do... But I didn't plan to transform into an actress, either. It just happened.

When I was 20 years old, I had no plans to ever be a filmmaker.

I wasn't one of those kids who was chasing the dream and wanted to get to Hollywood because one day I was gonna get my chance and be a big star. I never felt like that.

I never intended to be in show business; I intended to be an extremely grounded person.

Modelling was never in my plan. Never.

Films were never in my budget. Didn't occur to me till much later. I hoped for a long, good life, which I've had and I'm having as an actor. I didn't expect the rest.

I have no desire to play King Lear or Hamlet. I never had a grand ambition. I just followed my nose.

I never really thought about being an actress or being anything like that. I was always a bit scared as well because of the thing about models becoming an actress and all that.

I was a kid from Oklahoma who never wanted to be a singer, but was told I could sing. And things snowballed.

I had no intention of being an actor. I was quite good at it. I was pretty capable at other things but never any good at anything.

To be honest I never thought the acting thing would get off the ground.

After I graduated high school and came out to do 'Buffy,' I was enrolled at my mom's university, and I was going to go get a real job. I never thought of acting and never really wanted to be an actor.

I never thought I could model, and I certainly never thought about acting. It's just something that happened to me.

I didn't plan to be a director until I was 35. For years I wanted to do anything but!

I surf; I skateboard. I'm from Southern California. I never thought I was going to be an actor. And to be honest with you, I never really thought of myself as one.

Definitely, I did not, after 'SNL,' say, 'OK, first I'll go be in Alexander Payne's movie.' I thought I might go back to writing, to be honest.

When I left high school - I was younger than my classmates, just 17 - I knew I wanted to be an actress, but I thought, 'When I go to college, I'd rather study something else.'

I never wanted to be an actor but ended up being one.

I look back - I think I am an accidental actor.

Part of me, even when I was trying to get acting jobs, I was still kind of thinking, 'Oh I should do something else with my life.'