Mike O'Malley Quotes

I never got a lead role and I make no bones about it.

When I finished my A-levels, I assumed I'd be able to get work as an actor. But I couldn't. I didn't get an audition. Nothing. So I thought I'd better train and then the parts would come.

I wanted to be a dramatic actress. Life doesn't go the way you think it's going to go.

As a kid, I wanted to be an actress, but ambition and reality are two different things.

You see, she was gonna be an actress and I was gonna learn to fly. She took off to find the footlights, and I took off for the sky. And here, she's acting happy, inside her handsome home. And me, I'm flying in my taxi, taking tips, and getting stoned. I go flying so high, when I'm stoned.

Why did I keep hitching myself to dreams as big as that Montana sky? I was like Rooster Jim's chickens, with no way to fly that high.

I think it's important I stay connected to every part of my personality. I play basketball. I rock climb. I paint. I'm a little bit scattered, but it's so I can convincingly play all these characters.

You must have to want it so badly, if there is any way you can live without it, get out of it. Being an unsuccessful actor is like having a skin disease. Make sure your passion is not misplaced.

At the end of the day, I've played six years, haven't made the playoffs yet, that burns me and hurts my heart, so I really want to be playing.

Where I came from, the idea of going into show business was just ridiculous; in fact I didn't tell anybody because I knew people would laugh at me. So I sort of snuck around and got some pictures and got a resume together and, of course, lied and said I did all kinds of things I didn't do.

I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be an actor.' That's what I did.

I did not expect to be allowed to be an actor, to be allowed to eventually direct things.

My first audition was for a commercial for the lottery. I didn't get it, so I hate the lottery.

If I had known how much I hate auditioning, I doubt I would have become an actress.

Once I started doing stand-up, everything fell into place. That was when I started acting more; I felt like I'd found my place in the business.

I wanted to be a serious actress, but of course that didn't really happen.

I've been telling people 'I'm going to go to California, and I'm going to be a big star' since the womb, but lately it was immediately followed by, 'Would you like soup or salad with that?'

I want to branch out. I want to write. I write poetry. I want to see my children grow up well.

You see a script, and you say, 'Oh, I can play the heck out of that,' talk to your agent, and he says they don't want to see you. That's heartbreaking.

Even the first suitcase-off-the-train moment, it's easy to be discouraged, frustrated, annoyed, angry. Because you're waiting in freezing weather outside of an open call, and you're like, 'This moment of me right now is not the joy I felt when I was doing J. Pierrepont Finch in 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying' in high school.'

I've always loved to write. I've been writing a lot longer than I've been acting, and I hope to continue to do that and maybe do it a little bit more in terms of, like, writing movies that I could potentially act in.

I always wanted to play a cowboy. I just didn't get to do it the way I thought I would.

I had tried out for theatre school and didn't get it four times.

I never made it on 'Castle.' I tried a few times, so I don't know, but it never worked out.

I assumed no one would ever listen to my music, and for quite a lot of years, I was right.