Allison Tolman Quotes

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. I lived in Grand Blanc, Michigan for a year and that's when I got involved in acting and took classes there. A manager who saw me at the agency I was at in Michigan wanted me to come out to L.A.

I went there and helped him shuffle pictures of people, and one of the agents asked me if I was interested in acting. Of course, I was a little bit interested in it; I'm sure that's part of the reason I moved to L.A. even though I never admitted it to myself.

When I moved out to L.A., I went on 156 auditions before I booked a single thing.

I said, going into acting, 'I'm never moving to L.A.,' because it scared me. But there was no way you could build an acting career in Orange County.

When I realized that you can't necessarily be cast in a really great part living in Austin, even when Hollywood comes to town, I got a demo reel together and headed out west.

In L.A., if you're in improv, and you're on those stages, all the big agents and managers and producers are watching those shows. They're not flying to Chicago to see the show. People are booking jobs off the stages in L.A. who aren't more talented than the guys in Chicago. But the most guys book out of L.A., and the second is New York.

In the early days, I just got lucky. I would audition for everything and just happen to land in something pretty respectable, like 'Freaks and Geeks,' my first job, which was a complete fluke.

And when I have lived elsewhere, every two weeks I have to fly back to LA. Even New York directors go there to audition. So I have to be there to a degree.

I did the whole struggling actor thing and lucked into being in the right place at the right time and getting involved in the first 'High School Musical.'

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.

I remember when I first came to Los Angeles being staggered by the range of roles open to me. These were leading parts in shiny new projects, and what always excited me was knowing there was a possibility that I could actually get these parts. I always had the impression that I had a chance.

I owe my whole acting career to the fact that I'm a singer. I went out to Los Angeles and auditioned for a TV show called 'Fame L.A.' The original role was for a comedian, but they said I wasn't very funny, so they asked me, 'What else can you do?' So I played a singer.

My father is an actor, so he brought me into his agency when I was young. It wasn't something I wanted to do until high school, when I started taking theater and really liked it. Then an agent found me and wanted me to come out to Los Angeles and give it a shot. I gave myself six months, but it only took me like a week to get a job.

Being an actor in L.A. is like being in prison: you go, you serve your time, you try to replicate Johnny Depp's career - and then you move to Paris.

My aim was never to be an American star; otherwise, I would have moved to Los Angeles.

Well, I want to do The Music Man. I think it's an amazing opportunity, but I think that they are probably looking at major movie stars right now, and I don't blame them.

I began auditioning for acting jobs at the ripe old age of 12. Thirty years later, including a 15-year run on television, I sometimes just get offers for work. Often, however, I am still required to run pell-mell around Los Angeles or New York, interviewing for film and TV jobs.

I was on a well-beaten path of actors - what we all call 'the Law and Order route'. I spent two years of auditioning for everything... and then 'The Wire' came up.

Occasionally I will audition for a big overseas movie, but that's it.

After 'Gremlins' came out, I should have packed up everything, moved to Los Angeles from New York, and dedicated myself to being a full time film actor. I had the world at my feet.

My big break was really Liz Meriwether saw me in a movie called 'Paper Heart' and really liked it, and then saw me in a movie called 'Ceremony' because she knew Max Winkler and said, 'I want you to be in 'No Strings Attached,' but you gotta audition for it.' From that it was easier for her to get me in 'New Girl.'

I screen tested for 'The Tudors' in N.Y. That was my first experience of N.Y., being flown here to screen test with Jonathan Rhys Meyers. So I have very, very fond memories of New York - New York helped give me my first big break.

I think every young actor in Los Angeles went up for that role. It was between Frankie Muniz and me, and he pulled out, so I got the role.

People weren't willing to bet on 'The Commercial Guy' when they were casting movies and television in the beginning, but I stuck around, and now it's slowly starting to pay off.

I moved to Los Angeles when I was 17. I had just booked 'Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakwell.' I thought, 'Well, I'm just going to move to L.A. and become famous. 'Squeakwell' is going to launch me to that point.' Well, I didn't end up working for, like, three years afterward. That's kind of the name of the game.