Janina Gavankar Quotes

I was totally unknown in the television and film industry in Canada.

I got in touch with my agent and told him I wanted to start going out on things again.

You have to make enough noise to be cast in the right films, and the best way to make that noise is to do lots of good work.

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.

It's a weird thing when you spend your life trying to find these great scripts and great parts. You are reading scripts, you are traveling the world, you are hassling your agent. You are trying to find that script.

When I first came to Hollywood, I could not break into movies.

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

If my goal is to become a movie star, me working at a pizza shop won't help me. I have to make the stars align.

I'm trying to work in studio movies, but they won't hire me.

I've actually done three pilots for Disney. I met with the network when I was 16 years old and had just started acting. I would fly to Los Angeles to film pilots, then fly back to Dallas, where I grew up.

I hope to make acting my career for the rest of my life, if I can.

I've been in more than 20 movies. You just do the best you can and try to make a living.

Acting is a trial-and-error business. Every actor has a few movies on their resume that they're not terribly proud of, but that's how you learn.

Hollywood can be brutal, inhuman, the opposite of what the theatre is, and I had little desire to be part of it.

When I first came to California, it was fun and exciting to get any part in any movie and get paid for it. Because of my size and my background, it seemed like I was right for just about anything.

I decided to go to school for advertising and graphic design. That was what I was gonna do but acting is that thing, it's like a splinter in your mind and you can't get rid of it. So I decided to move to L.A. a few years ago and it just snowballed into this thing called 'The Hunger Games.'

I'm not being offered a constant stream of wonderful parts with wonderful directors that would keep me away from the theatre. When they turn up, I do them.

From 'Polytechnique,' I started to get scripts and after 'Incendies,' of course, it exploded.

'Cuckoo's Nest' was my first film, and I had wanted to do film for some time, but somehow I had not clicked. I would go in for interviews or readings, and I never had the sense that I was anywhere near what they were looking for.

I don't have any plans of slowing down. I love being an actor.

I've sort of left the theater just for little shoots here and there - little one-off series or small roles in films or whatever.

I wasn't turning down film roles, let's put it that way. I was never really on that radar.

I started taking acting classes when I was 14. That's when I knew I wanted to try it professionally. Before that, I watched movies, always, but I didn't think it was a real job. I watched Turner Classic Movies with my parents. I've always loved the old classics.

I get sent a lot of scripts where you're just the mom.

It hasn't really made it easier getting film work. It's not like I can call up a studio or a producer and say - insert haughty voice here - 'It's Parker. I guess you might know me as the indie queen. I'm wondering if you have any projects for me to be in.'