Billie Piper Quotes

People have this belief that actors are able to go out there and say, 'Oh I choose this job,' but most of the time we're just taking the job we can get. We don't just get offered thousands of jobs; we might earn one job a year and that's the one we'll take because we've got to pay the rent.

A lot of my friends aren't working, especially since fewer films are being made now and there's more competition.

There are far more good actors than there are jobs for them, so it's a big question of luck.

Too many actors get on an ego trip and won't do commercials, so they sit around for 20 years between jobs.

I'm the seventh child of George and Leona Douglas, and I don't ever remember a time when my father didn't work two jobs. When my mother was going to the grocery, or going to Mass, or trying to take care of seven kids in a run-down farmhouse.

I was on a couple of scholarships. I had a job in the school administrative office. I had a job as a hat-check boy in a restaurant. I had another job as an assistant to a casting director. It took a lot to get myself enough money to put myself through Juilliard.

When I was in acting classes early on, there were so many people in these classes who were doing great work, and you'd just look at them and say, 'Wow, I hope to someday be like that.' And yet these people never worked. You never saw them.

When I got started in New York, it wasn't like it is now. If you were different from Miles and Dizzy, it was very difficult to make gigs and make money with your own style.

I did six Broadway shows, and I noticed there weren't many female comedians. When I went to a dancing audition, there were 1,000 girls. And there were three jobs. So I said I'll just try comedy. And I loved it.

Honestly, I wish I'd known just how hard it is and how competitive the acting world is. I took my time; I went at my own pace. That's been helpful over the years, but also, I didn't quite realize how incredible everyone else was going to be: the level of competition and everyone's skill.

Just because you get a show and it gets on the air doesn't mean jack. It certainly means that you'll be considered for stuff, but you've got to fight and claw to get every job.

When I started, I had a really hard time getting work. It was the mid- to late-nineties. There was the WB. My age was perfect for it, but I just never came across as a youngster. I had to grow into my age in order to start working, and by the time I did, it was when things started to get good.

I think small business is struggling in New York City. It's a fantastic market, it's a very appealing market, there's lots of opportunity, at the same time it's a very difficult place to build a small business.

You think when you start getting jobs that it'll get easier, but that's the biggest lie ever. It gets harder. You have to put in more work. I wish it were the casting couch days because it'd be a lot easier!

For instance, twelve men are struggling for employment in a trade where there is only room for eight ; four are driven out of that trade, but they are not trampled out of existence. A good deal of competition merely decides what kind of work a man is to do though of course when a man can only do one kind of work, it may easily become a struggle for bare life.

People say, 'Well, why don't they get another job, why don't they pick themselves up by their bootstraps?' Well, the people that say that probably have the kind of jobs where they don't work that hard, so maybe they could have another job.

Some people might think that what I've done before made it easier for me to get jobs, but it was actually a disadvantage. I had to work even harder.

There are 14 Cabinet spots, and God only knows how many hundreds of people want them.

Ninety percent of my roles, I've had to fight for. It's only a really small percentage of people who get handed roles.

Here's the secret you should remember whenever you hear someone lamenting how tough it is to get ahead in the postindustrial global economy: Few people work nearly as hard as they could.

With a famous name, you have to work that much harder to get the part.

Work begets work. Just work. If you work, people will find out about you and want to work with you if you're good. So work anywhere you can. That's why I've changed my mind about these theatres where people work for free or have to pay money. I think it's kind of terrible that they feel they have to, but you know what? They're working.

I still have to hustle to get jobs, audition and put myself out there.

Growing up, I had no idea just how hard my dad worked to make it all work.

I've always been a guy who comes in not being guaranteed a spot and always fighting for a spot. Any time you're in a camp, and you're not a big money guy, you're always going to be competing for a job.