Tessa Thompson Quotes

I had the privilege of being able to choose, or at least have the opportunity to work at, being anything but an actor.

I think it's been confusing for people because I haven't had a linear career.

I always have looked for the best challenge, I guess, that I could take on. I haven't been producing my own work or anything like that, so I've taken the jobs that look most interesting that come my way.

You only have a true choice when you know what opportunities are out there and what qualifications you need.

I don't think you can discriminate against budgets, you know? I'm an actor, I guess, so I'm just trying to play as many characters as I can. If there's a character I think I can play, and they're going to let me do it, I'll do it whether it's $10 or $1 million or more.

On Career Day in high school, you don't walk around looking for the cartoon guy.

The whole goal for me with my career is just follow good projects and good parts and challenge myself as much as I can.

I kind of have never thought about a career path, which is an unusual approach.

As far as post-'SNL' career, whatever kind of comes my way that looks interesting, I'll do it, you know?

The mission for the day is to encourage students to think beyond traditional career opportunities, prepare for future careers and entrance into the workplace.

I think in the early part of my career, the roles were so disparate that it never gave anybody an opportunity to understand my essence and what I would be good at doing, as opposed to what I would not be good at doing, so these little moments of beautiful things that were happening to me were consistent, but very few and very far between.

Sometimes I wonder if I would've been more successful if I wasn't acting and I concentrated on other things. But I love being on set. I love working with my 100 crew members.

When you first start, you just want to get a job. It goes from that to really deciding what kind of work you want to do and what kind of actor you want to be - and it only gets harder.

Denzel Washington, Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford, Tom Cruise: those guys have well-planned careers. I'm just on a journey. Wherever I run across a job, I say, 'Okay, I'll do that.'

'One Tree Hill' was a great learning opportunity for me, and I'm excited to go and apply that elsewhere and see where I end up.

I remember when I was 12, talking with my friends about what we wanted to do with our lives, astronauts, forensic detectives, all these different jobs. And the only thing I could think was an actor.

I'm trying to mix the cool, independent stuff with the big stuff, but it's been difficult finding the right roles. It's been an interesting ride as far as my career pendulum is concerned.

There are a great number of people from New Jersey who go on to have pretty successful careers.

It's nice to know that there are several different avenues I could pursue.

I'm always trying to look for different roles.

I never set out to be an actor. Again, my mother presented this job by job to me at the time, and if it sounded fun, I would say yes and if it didn't, I would say no. I always knew, since I was 7 or 8 years old, that it was a means to an end and that I wanted to go to college.

Something I can't stress enough is the massive importance of work experience. It's the only way to find out what work is really like when you're figuring out what path to take and to get an understanding of what it takes to achieve your career ambitions.

Had I not been a model at the beginning of my career, probably acting would not have happened.

I learn a lot in interviews, I learn about how careers differ.

Becoming a tutor was among the many attractive post-collegiate side careers I failed to pursue while devoting the bulk of my days to writing fiction.