Morris Chestnut Quotes

Anyone with talent can play in the Major Leagues; for someone like me to stay around as long as I did, I think that's a much greater acheivement.

I'm a better actor now than I ever was, I wish I could have hurried that up, but there's no way. Anyway, I always wanted to be around for a long time. Like a European actor, I hope I live a long time and that I'm acting until I finish.

I don't think I can call myself an actress yet. I just don't think my skill level is that high. I hope that with every job it gets better. But until I'm good, I can say I'm trying to be an actor, but I don't think I've completely made it.

I think every role you do prepares you for the next one. Of course, 'Nashville' has been, and will continue to be, a huge learning experience for me as an actor. It's something that I grew a lot doing.

I think that 'Degrassi' really challenged its actors. I was on it for seven years, and it was one of my first jobs. I can't even watch the early episodes - they're so embarrassing! But I really do think I grew as an actor and learned a lot over the seven years.

I don't know if I'd say I feel green, but I'm getting to know myself as an actor now in a way that I never did as a kid.

Getting bad reviews or doing something that's not great is also really good for you as an actor. It also makes me feel as an actor that I've earned my stripes a bit.

One of the great things about my job is I get to do all of these things that I may not experience had I not been an actor.

'As the World Turns' was such a great experience and such a great school for me. It was better than any class I could have ever taken.

I didn't have a bad experience on 'Gossip Girl,' by any means, but it was during a time in my life where I was looking at acting in not a very serious way. Which is no insult to 'Gossip Girl,' but that was a time in my life when I really didn't know if I wanted to act when I got out of school. It was like, 'OK, I got this part. I'll go do this.'

You get better as an actor over time if you're growing. Like singers.

Well I started studying to help me with these commercial auditions and I just loved it.

'Guest Iin London' didn't work, but it got me more work; it helped me grow as an actor.

I'm making it up as I go along, like everyone else. There probably are some actors who are quite methodical or at least take their time about what particular footholds to find on the rocks next. There are always choices, even when you're not getting seen, for how to spend your time. It's only after 10 years that I got any kind of traction at all.

I want to do only such films which will help me grow as an actor.

I want to take on more diverse roles, and I keep building, and I hope to one day write or direct something. But I just want to keep developing as a person, and that will hopefully take my acting to the next level.

At one point of time, most of my films were successful, so I could have launched a production house. But had I done that, I would not have grown as an actor.

When I hear about some sensational new writer I sort of think, Shut up ... you've got to be around for a long time before you can really say you're a writer. You've got to stand the test of time, which is the only real test there is.

I think I was about 16 when I first figured I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be a fighter pilot before that, but then I thought I don't want to kill people so that ruled that out.

I'm maybe not so much an exception, maybe because I've lived so long that more is coming, more is there.

I think that initially all I wanted to do was work as an actress, and then, as I started to work more consistently, you start to maybe want to challenge yourself in different ways, so I think it's something that developed over time - this desire to direct and also to produce. I think as you watch other actresses do it so successfully and so gracefully, you're like, I think that would be fun! It's definitely something that has become more of a priority for me.

I've only been acting since 2009 and I learn more and more with each job. I think I prepare and I'm very focused and I have a good work ethic that I learned in school.

I think I'm probably more passionate about acting now than when I was a kid. When I was young, I didn't know what I was doing.

I also think within the scene, a specific scene - if I were to play a part that I played 10 years ago now, my interpretation of that scene would be totally different. I would be making different choices. Because I can't somehow subtract all of the experiences that I've had in my life. And it's fascinating to see, because somewhere I'm very reflective in that. You know, I've been playing basically actually close to 40 years old, so I'm somewhere lost in age in this movie. But it's been fascinating to see that I can't subtract that time.

If I look at the people that I look up to, a lot of them don't come to the forefront until their early to mid-30s. I think the most exciting roles are definitely yet to come.