Terry O'Quinn Quotes

All I wanted to do was be a working actor.

If I wasn't acting, I would be trying to break into acting.

Acting is a tough business to break into.

I don't know so much about making it, because I think of myself as a working actor who's always got my eye on what's going to be the next job. I've been acting for 22 years, and I think there's something to be said for simply staying in the game.

I mean, its hard to be an actor in the city - trying to make it as an actor - because you waitress all night, you get home really late and you're super tired and your feet hurt.

But I thought, I've just got to check out Hollywood, so I sent out pictures and resumes.

But it's hard to sustain a successful acting career today.

I haven't really focused so much on getting acting work.

All I really wanted to be was a working actor.

I started when I was 21, and it was always about getting the next job - like most actors, that's all it's ever been for me.

Don't leave your job without getting an acting offer. Very few people in the industry are lucky to get a film without much struggle and be successful.

I have an agent and everything. I audition occasionally.

If you want to be an actor or actress out of high school or college, just know what you're getting in for. It's a job. If you look at it like a job, and you make it a career and a profession, then you're bound to do well.

It was hard to make a living as an actor in New York if you did not do soap operas or commercials.

If you want to be an actor, you have to do it because you love acting, not because you want to be a celebrity.

I took acting classes in college, and once I graduated, I decided to give acting a shot when I couldn't really think of anything else to do. It took me a couple of years to get an agent, and my first big break was The Fanelli Boys, which was a sitcom on NBC. Then I did a few television movies.

When I left Maine, I always wanted to be a working actor. I never cared too much about being the star. I just wanted to do the work and get on with it.

Honestly, acting is the most work when you're unemployed. For me, the actual acting part is never hard. It's the politics and basically everything around the acting that is difficult.

My dad was a theater actor, so he had an agent, and he brought me into his agency when I was maybe four years old. That was how I started. I started modeling, and it progressed from there.

I'd knocked on doors when I'd gone to theater school in Los Angeles the summer of my junior year, trying to find an agent and submitting headshots, but nobody would see me, and I knew it was virtually impossible to get an audition if you didn't have an agent.

My plan was to be able to make a living as an actor.

I'm a grinding actor. That's how I've always viewed myself. You go from one job to the next.

Being an actor, you have to be working even when you're not working. You never really get to relax because anytime you're relaxing in between jobs, you're just worried that you're not going to get another job.

I think as working actors, it's like sales. You're only as good as your last sale, so you put your all into something and you just hope that from that you can get your next job.

As an actor sometimes we sit and wait for projects to be handed to us and we don't really work. We expect our agents and managers to know who we are and to see who we are and offer us a part or send us out and submit us.