Sam Elliott Quotes

I'm very, very lucky to be a working actor, but I've also been careful. I don't just take anything. 'Durham County' came to me. You have to look at the quality of work you do, and 'Durham' set the standard. I wait for things that keep me really interested.

I look to longevity. I just consider myself an actress and getting good roles. If being a 'superstar' gets me good roles, then that's a positive thing. But my goal isn't just to be a superstar. It's to act for a long time.

I haven't really been auditioning. For me is about finding quality work versus finding work. I get a considerable amount of offers everyday.

Most of the offers I get from Hollywood are for teen comedies. My manager thinks I'm crazy for turning down all that money, but I'm very picky.

My career has been a gradual climb. I think that's part of the reason why I've had longevity.

I'd much rather turn down a starring role in a bad picture and do a small role in a very good picture.

I always knew that I wanted to work and I knew I wanted to be a singer and an actor. I knew that every choice I made would help me get to that point. So the better the choices I made, the more of a chance I would have to get to where I wanted to be.

My objective was to have as varied a selection of roles as possible. It probably did hurt my career.

There's no one actor in particular that I want to model my career after, except for the people who have been able to keep their career varied and who choose things that interest them. That opportunity is all I really want.

You want a career. You don't want to do a couple of good films and then your career is over.

It was just expected that I would go to college. Both my parents are teachers and they tolerated acting, but I was going to go to a school of quality or bust. Which made my downshifting back to acting afterward a little difficult.

Had acting not taken off, I would've been glad to become a teacher.

My whole mission is to have a long, interesting career, not a short spiky one.

Bollywood was never really the aim, actually. I mean, sure, you could argue that I could have done more films there; for sure, I could have.

Even though I have been receiving offers left, right and centre, I have been a little choosy about my projects.

I told myself coming into the league that if I could play for six or seven years, that would have been a great career.

The first thing I wanted to be growing up was a solicitor, because all the people around me needed solicitors! But I never really followed it up. Then I wanted to be a dessert chef because I liked the presentation.

There's a lot to be said for women who want to focus primarily on acting. Other women, on the other hand, aspire to combine their work in acting with other ventures in fashion, business, directing, writing, producing, etc. It's a very personal decision.

I want to be a director - and you need to get out there and do it, you can't wait 'til it comes to you... I'd give anything to be able to do what Ron Howard's done.

We are not in the playground anymore, it's not about who is the toughest, it's about my career, I want to have a long and successful career.

I want longevity in this career.

I want to do good work and not take on any movie. I want to do a good movie where I have the most important or very good role.

I'm not running about playing romantic leads. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but it's the way it's sort of working out.

I have never planned my career. I chose those films with which I could relate myself. But if given a chance, I would love to do the kind of roles Meryl Streep has done.

I had an acting career for a little while back in the '90s. I had gotten into that because I was interested in acting, but I was not really as centered as I needed to be to fully pursue that career, and I was doing some films I thought were not of the best quality.