Rita Rudner Quotes

I was a dancer from about the age of four, so I was always performing and forcing my parents to watch my brother and I do 'Jesus Christ Super Star' in the living room. My first step was community theater, and then I started to do films.

I saw things at an early age because my mom was a theater actress. I did a play with her when I was 10 years old.

I always did plays. When I was in kindergarten, I got chosen to be Alvin in 'The Chipmunks.' We did a Chipmunks song. I was always a natural performer. It was easy for me. I danced and I sang, and all that stuff. I felt like I'd be something in the arts, but it vacillated between being a dancer and a singer, or whatever.

By the time I was twelve, I had started my own theater company and was doing plays in the backyard and the front yard and all over the neighborhood, so, you know, I was definitely a lifer even back when I was 10.

I've worked since I was a five-year-old to be a performer.

I started out as a dancer as a kid; I've been dancing since I was 4. So performing was always part of what I was.

I started performing when I was 9 or 10, doing magic.

If I hadn't become an actress, I would be a dancer.

I started performing non-professionally at birthday parties and family gatherings doing 'Saturday Night Live' impressions at four. Then I started for real at seven.

I started dancing at age three and then got involved in musical theatre and acting around age seven. I think I've probably known since then that I want to be a professional actor.

I was always toying with the idea of acting.

I did musical theatre for about four years. One time, I did six shows in one year whilst juggling school.

I always knew I wanted to dance. I started ballet when I was three years old, and I just knew it was something that I loved and that I wanted to do.

I think the first role I ever played was the Magic Carpet in 'Aladdin Jr.' I did a lot of tap dancing and not a lot of dialogue. But I loved it so much, and I loved the way people responded to the characters.

I wanted to be an actor. Music was a side project.

It changed my life, being in 'Company.' I didn't think I was going to be an actress.

I did a theater program the summer of my junior year, and that's when I really fell in love with the craft of acting. It became more about the craft and less about being a working actor.

I've been playing live since I was in sixth grade.

I used to sing when I was into local theatre but gave it up to concentrate on dance.

My mom put me into my first play at five at a local theater, and the next day after my first practice, I was like, 'This is what I want to do with my life.'

Doing a musical is not just acting. It's total theater. When you have to justify the enormous projection of energy it takes to just go into song and dance, you realized why it's such a humbling experience every time you go into a show.

There's something about a live theater performance: You can't fake it.

There's a picture of me at 3 years old playing the baby rat in 'The Pied Piper.'

When real actors are approaching their work, we could be on a little stage somewhere, doing community theater. It's all the same. They're just trying to make the scene work. They're just trying to do the best they can and figure it out.

The theater is the 'church' and when I'm on that stage I am the Priest/Pastor, it is a pure spiritual journey for me.