Ato Essandoh Quotes

I went to UCLA as pre-med. When I was there my freshman year, I auditioned for a play and got it, and I was so passionate. I just loved acting so much that I decided to switch majors and pursue acting.

I left an office at the top of the Pan Am Building, a nine-room apartment, and a farm in Vermont because I was aching inside. It took an analyst to tell me I could write a note of permission to become a musician and sign it.

And I discovered after a couple years that I really didn't miss making movies.

I didn't want to be an accountant; I found myself being a banker, which was a bit different. I went to university, and I was going to do a Ph.D. in the States, but I didn't get the funding for it, so I had two years where I had a bit of a wobble and didn't really know what I wanted to do, and I ended up working as a banker.

I hoped that I could learn how to combine an education with acting. But I was unhappy with the direction I chose, so I decided to take on a six-month tour for a musical theater performance, thinking that I'd go back to university in a year. That became two years, then three years, until I really realized I am already doing what I love doing.

Upon graduation, I hit a wall. All of my good friends from UCLA were taking on jobs they were passionate about, and I felt left behind. It took a bit of soul searching, but in the end, I finally had the guts to pursue acting.

I gave up the idea of having a career when I was 24. Sounds glamorous, but I've been doing things since then, and part of those adventures was to make films because I realised I was actually quite good at it and I enjoyed it.

Personally, I think life offers us the opportunity to take chances and make changes all the time.

I was at university and I was studying modern drama and studying English, and I just was like, 'I don't wanna be in this place. I wanna be acting.'

You reach a point when you say to yourself, 'Do I want to keep doing this?' There are other things on my plate I want to do - I've been writing a play; I've been neglecting my standup.

When I decided to go to university I didn't know what I wanted to do. When I had an opportunity to take an elective I took Drama by chance, even though I'd never taken a Drama course or even been in a play in high school. Two years later I was majoring in Drama and I knew I wanted to be an actor.

I guess I hit a point while I was in college when I realized I would have to do something with my life!

By 30, I was separated from my husband, and I clearly remember sitting in my lovely office with a magnificent view, staring at a very lucrative pay stub, and bursting into tears because I was just miserable. So I had to make a decision: Keep following my plan, or be honest with myself and search for my true passion.

I left Northwestern University after a year and was in New York playing piano in a little bar on 58th Street, and I didn't know whether to go back.

When I uploaded my very first video, I was just looking for something to make me happy. I was confused about what I was doing in my life and had earned a degree that I didn't really enjoy. With that video, I was finally doing something I was passionate about. So it was my way of self-medicating.

To do the things that I did, I'm amazed that I had the audacity - like resigning from the Army and becoming a janitor and a songwriter.

I was obsessed with the idea of going to college. And I took many years off after that, so I sort of missed the weird, crazy transition that was what making movies was in the nineties to what's happening now.

I realised I had spent the majority of my adult life doing two characters - Maude from 1972-'79 and Dorothy from 1985-'92 - and I really didn't know what I wanted to do after 'Golden Girls.' I knew what I didn't want to do - any more sitcoms, or wait for the next great role that might never come.

When you get to a certain age, you have to make a decision for yourself: if you want to get old in the industry, and you want to play maybe a few parts that come along now and then - or what else in life interests you?

When I chose to leave a career as a young lawyer in Washington to move to Arkansas to marry Bill and start a family, my friends asked, 'Are you out of your mind?'

I tell fans who ask me why I'm not doing comedy anymore that I'm a different person. I've grown and I've matured. I've made a transition to where I really want to be.

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.'

When I went to the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne to study drama, I felt I'd finally found my place in life.

For a few years, I thought I was putting show business behind me. I was busy doing other things in life, particularly with politics. I was not out looking for films, really. I lost interest.

I don't think, because I'm going to school for something else, that I will stop being an actress.