Lea Michele Quotes

I'd done two years' worth of extra work, and all my friends who I would go on auditions with went to school for acting. These were kids who knew when they were 14 years old that this was what they wanted to do with their lives, and they prepared for it, and they're getting canned at every audition.

My family thought the fascination with acting was just another fad.

I always loved acting - though what I did in my teens was probably more eclat than elan. But I wasn't sure about doing it professionally.

Sometimes I don't feel like an actor. Sometimes I speak about it like it was another job, and then I go, 'Wait a minute - I am one!'

I wanted to be a doctor, but my mom was like, 'It's really hard and it's going to take 10 years,' so I was like 'OK, I'll just be a lawyer'.

I love acting and really think that's what I want to do. It's weird seeing myself up there, but I'm used to it now. But otherwise, I have backups. Doctor, lawyer.

I want to act because I don't know how to do anything else.

I thought that if acting didn't work out, I'd have done law school or medical school: probably law to be honest.

I had accidentally gotten a laugh on a line in a play I was in during high school. I got hooked, but I had no idea I would ever be able to support myself by acting. I knew no one in the business. I was from the Midwest. No one within a radius of a thousand miles was doing anything like that.

I think I once went three or four years without doing a play, and I almost lost my mind, then I came back and did 'Spamalot.'

I had no plans to be ever a lawyer, a crime fighter [in school].

I never wanted to be in movies. In a sense, I'm still a failure because I wanted to be a star on the stage.

I wouldn't want to try to make a living as an actor. I think actors... I give them a lot of credit for what they go through, but putting myself on the line like that would make me crazy.

I don’t think I would ever have been able to be an actress had I not started at nine years old. I would have been the last person to stand up and say, ‘I’d like to star in the play.’

It came up after doing St. Jimmy on Broadway for American Idiot. I loved acting, and so I just kept my options open.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor. I was acting in all the school plays. I went to school for acting. I was really sure that that's what I wanted to do.

I'm really into the rights of immigrants, the rights of the working poor. I'm one of those little activist types. I probably would have just gone to law school. And the scary part is that I was one of those kids who always tested really well. You put a test in front of me, and I would have been like do-do-do-do-do. I probably would have been some community lawyer somewhere - if anything, that's probably what I would have been doing.

What made me want to be an actor? Ah, I'm not really sure, to be honest. I was one of those little kids who did it around school, and then I got to university and made lots of bad plays and short films, and then midway through that, it suddenly dawned on me that this might be a satisfying way to earn a living, if that was at all feasible.

She was pondering the option of law school, the great American baby-sitter for directionless postgrads.

I was a pretty hyperactive kid, kind of ADD. I couldn't really stay sitting in my chair, so my kindergarten teacher would have me standing at the back of the room, because I couldn't sit for more than five minutes. My mom needed some positive way to focus my energy and I said I wanted to be an actor, so she was like, "Well, we'll roll with it and see how you respond to it," and I loved it. It was something I could instantly focus my attention to.

I certainly did plays in high school and community theater, and I want to get back on the stage.

My Mother's an actress, and she's always told me, "Boy, you're an actor." I would look forward to seeing if I'm any good. I want to be good at it, that's the only thing.

I only ever wanted to be an actress, not a star.

Growing up, I was the weird, theatrical kid who always tried to make people be in my plays. I've always loved comedy, but when it came time to figure out what I was going to go to school for, my parents were like, "Acting?! I don't think so. No." It took me a while to get the courage to pursue it. I had to do it in secret for a little bit, and then when I got married and was out on my own, I went for it.

As far back as I can ever remember, without really knowing it I wanted to be an actor. I was always dressing up, you know, playing pretend, putting on mothers hats and things. I'm sure Freud would have something to say about that. It was very much in my blood.