Jamie Hyneman Quotes

So when I told my parents I wanted to go into acting because I was flunking out of my first year of junior college, they were relieved that I had picked something other than joining the army. But I can't imagine how they had high hopes for me.

I was focused on either being a social worker or physiotherapist. That was the direction I was going until I met a girl who wanted to be an actress, and I wanted to be close to the girl, so I followed her into an audition.

I was 25 when I'd told my parents that I was giving up steady work as an electrician to become an actor. They couldn't have been less enthusiastic if I'd proposed starting a commercial newt-breeding operation in the bathroom.

I always wanted to be a doctor and go to art school, but I thought I'd regret it if I didn't act.

I've been getting a lot of science fiction scripts which contained variations on my 'Star Trek' character and I've been turning them down. I strongly feel that the next role I do, I should not be wearing spandex.

Not a lot of people make that transition from child actor to bigger, better roles.

I have to be careful not to do so many comedy airhead roles from now on. I've turned down a couple already.

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 am haunted by what my life would have been had I not had the courage in my early twenties to leave Pittsburgh for New York City and really commit to being a writer. Pittsburgh is both post-industrial and provincial, and the opportunities there are limited. It would have been quite easy to simply drift through life.

That transition from child to adult actor is so incredibly elusive. The roles that were coming to me as a young adult were not that great, but I was taking them anyway to pay the rent. And the more bad roles in bad movies I took, the less anybody wanted me for a good role in a good movie.

I wanted to be a lawyer. I realized I don't really want to be a lawyer. I want to play a lawyer. Thank God I figured that out.

I don't have any regrets. When I quit college and moved to Los Angeles to become an actress, it was so that I would not look back and have any regrets.

In high school, theater was all I ever wanted to do. I didn't see that I was going to set it aside for so many years and take a right turn into television. Of course, wanting to do theater is something you hear a lot from actors. I think I've been embarrassed to be in that big cliche.

Eventually, I went to college to study psychology, but I was getting more and more TV roles, so I thought, 'You know? It's kind of like psychology, but a little more selfish.' I took a break from school, moved to L.A., and never went back.

There was a point when I thought I would primarily be a writer, but the acting seems to have got in the way. So when I do get a chance, I jump at it.

I just don't consider myself to be, you know, an American actor. I don't want that life.

I didn't intend to be an actress. It was one of many things I was interested in, and it just took off. I was an actress between the ages of 18 and 22, and it was a wonderful, fun thing to do, but it wasn't what I intended long term. I parked acting a long time ago.

I don't have regrets. I've never sat here and thought, 'Gee, if only I'd done 'The Man Who Came to Dinner' on Broadway, I would have been happier.'

I think, as a kid, whenever you say you want to be an actor, you get discouraged, so perhaps if I had have listened to those people telling me that, I might have gone down the route of a teacher. But I was never really going to do that.

I think I've made some choices that maybe I wasn't so sure about for some reason or another. But I'm one of the lucky ones. Even when I was young, I played Bird, and that's a role people wait for their whole lifetime.

Honestly, 'Parenthood' was not what I planned. I didn't plan to do another drama. I didn't plan to play a single mom. I didn't plan, even, to do an ensemble show. But I hadn't found anything I liked as much. I just connected to the show.

I don't think I would ever write and star in a show again.

I was anxious before I decided to go back to acting about what I wanted to do with my life. Once I realized I was sort of interested in acting, I've been pretty lucky and had all these great parts. And I feel pretty much like, 'What will happen will happen.'

A month before I booked 'This Is Us,' I was like, 'Maybe I should move to Montreal and work in a coffee shop.'

At 17, I realized that it's going to be a tough decision to make, but I had the clarity of thought to walk out of cricket and try my luck in acting.