Joan Allen Quotes

As a person who came from a small town and had dreams of becoming an actor, I know what it's like to have no support system for what it is that you want to do. A lot of people think you don't have a chance.

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've known since I was about six that I wanted to be an actor, but I grew up in a very small country town, and it was just not something that was possible.

My journey has practically been a typical Hindi film script. I was a boy from a small town who wanted to make a future in dancing. Everyone though that I won't be able to do anything.

Coming from a small town it was tough to dream big. When I grew up in a small town in Georgia, my biggest dream was one day to be able to go to Atlanta.

Nobody really thought I was going to make it, because I was a musician. I really wasn't a singer.

There's nobody in the arts in my family. It was kind of embarrassing to even say that I wanted to be an actor.

Being from a small town, no one else was going to breathe life into my ideas other than me, so I had to go out there and do it.

Every time I've made a big decision in my life, it's been about letting in the possibility that maybe I could do something that I actually wanted to do and not letting people tell me that I should compromise or that it's too big of a dream.

What is it that you're not doing - in your work, in your life - because you feel you need permission? If someone had given you that permission as a youngster, what do you think you'd be doing now?

When I was younger, I was almost too afraid to admit that I wanted to be an actor. 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 enjoyed living in Chicago and doing plays for little or no money. I never actually thought that I would leave Chicago, originally. I wasn't one of those people that had a plan to pack up the van and drive out to Hollywood. I didn't want to.

After five awful movies, I admitted failure and said I was not cut out to be an actor. But how many people get a chance to live their dream?

I started studying at 26. Before that, I never thought of acting as something that I would ever try.

No one I knew in Sydney was thinking about how they might come to America and become a movie star. That would be considered delusions of grandeur. My parents were supportive, though. They just told me to keep at it as long as I was having fun.

'All in With Laila Ali' is educational, inspirational, compelling programming profiling individuals that have reached for the sky, pushed themselves to the limit and did things that you would think were impossible.

It's important to me to try and expose young people to the things they believe are off-limits to them. I tell them, 'There are no walls, only the ones we put up.' My advice to young people looking at my life is not to follow my footprint but to go out there and make their own.

Actually, I started to become an actress because I met someone who was just a friend and I found his life wonderful, I thought, Oh my god, you can travel, you're free, you can do what you want, you're the boss. And then I met an actor and I was in love with him.

I really feel like becoming a director came from other women saying, 'Yeah, you can do this.' I wanted to direct 'Six Feet Under,' and no, they didn't let me.

I took a gamble in becoming an actor and my dream job has been realised.

I would hate to be 65 and think, 'What if I had tried to be an actor?'

If I were to listen to people all the time when they say, 'Hey, this is a really high challenge, this is a high climb, the bar is pretty steep,' then I wouldn't have gone to the academy. I wouldn't have become an aircraft carrier pilot. I wouldn't have become a Navy SEAL for sure. And I probably wouldn't have applied to Harvard.

When I was 16 and wanted to be an actor, people told me to go work at the supermarket.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, 'I want to get out and become like him'. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

Though I played classical piano since age 5 and sang in a cappella groups, being an artist didn't seem like something I was talented enough to do full time. So I kind of buried that dream.