Allison Tolman Quotes

As an actor, there's very little you can do if people don't want to see you. Just getting yourself into the room to audition is tough.

At the time I was growing up in the business I was very well established within the industry as a child actor and as I grew up and turned into a teenager there was less and less work.

But so much of being an actor isn't so great - the auditioning, the rejection, the financial insecurity.

I've auditioned for normal characters. But I never get cast.

Young actors often ask me how do you get an agent, how do you get started, how do you get to audition, and I don't know what to tell them because my story is so fluky.

I have friends that are much better actors than I am that had to quit the business because they couldn't survive the auditions or the rejections, or people just didn't realize how good they were.

As an actor, sometimes you've gotta take the jobs that you may not want to do. It's so hard to work as an actor.

What's monotonous about being an actor and often makes me want to throw in the towel or drive a car off a bridge is the auditioning - the waiting around.

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.

I'm not in a position where I get to pick and choose roles. I usually go on auditions in long lines and embarrass myself in front of casting directors, and with a lump in my throat and my ears burning, I walk past reception and smirking actors as I go to the parking garage and go back on the highway.

As an actor, I'm always just so pumped when I get any job. To be a working actor takes a lot of luck.

Being an actor, you always feel like you're swimming upstream. People are going, 'No, they don't like you. They don't like the way you look. They don't like how old you are.'

I think 99 percent of actors have gone through severe rejection before they ever landed a single role. I probably auditioned for 100 projects before I was cast in even the smallest role.

When you start as an actor, you can only hope you'll be able to act at all - let alone on a show that lasts seven seasons.

When I first auditioned for 'Stranger Things,' I was just living in Chicago. Just looking for a job. Working at a restaurant, doing commercials and bit parts on shows. I honestly would have been happy booking anything.

There were years in between of going to auditions pretty much every day and getting nothing.

I faced many ups and downs, like any other actor: not getting through auditions or even worse - getting shortlisted and not being selected. Most actors go through the process.

My brother and I always intended to get back into acting. We just wanted to take a break because, I think, coming off of the seven-year run of 'The Suite Life,' we wanted to detach ourselves from that idea a little bit.

There's a process: you audition, you get rejected, occasionally you get jobs, and it's exciting, but it's all little stepping stones.

I'm a working actress in Hollywood. You unfortunately don't get the pick of the litter when it comes to auditions and jobs.

I think people feel completely stunted without an agent, but there's a lot of auditions to be had without one and a lot to be learned before you take an agent on.

The problem with being an actress is there's a lot of rejection.

It's very hard to become an actor in film and television, you have to have such perseverance and you have to really believe that if you have any sort of talent at all, you will find work one day.

I always find it funny when I watch actors talking about, 'I chose to do this part.' A lot of times it's 'you're lucky to get the job.' We're like, 'Thank you so much.'

I never talk about auditions. Even if I've got the role, I won't tell people until we're literally filming it.