Dervla Kirwan Quotes

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.

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.

In Chicago, I'd audition 3-4 times a week, but when I got out to L.A., there were, like, 4-5 a day, and my skin got really thick.

It's a tough journey as an actor in Los Angeles.

The average actor might only be able to book six to eight guest star jobs a year - that would be high. So when you start doing the math, you can't live on that in Los Angeles.

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.

I moved to LA and decided to do films and television, mainly because the theater in New York is totally dead.

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.

After high school, I drove out to L.A. with a friend of mine who had just graduated also, and I started auditioning. I got an agent, but it was all 'Saved By the Bell' auditions.

You're a smaller fish in the U.S. There's just so many more TV shows, and actors, and actresses. Where as in the U.K. you're in a much smaller market there.

It was like there's got to be some way to stay working and stay productive in Los Angeles. TV is that kind of thing for an actor. Unless you get stuck in one of these shows where you have to go to Vancouver.

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've always been someone who can just move. Some people in L.A. are addicted. They have to be here; they come for pilot season and stay here.

I loved my time doing 'Private Practice' in Los Angeles, and I was quite challenged and excited to learn about the art of television, but I missed being on the stage.

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

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.

Acting is a tough business, and the percentage of people who make it is very low - it's about 1 percent.

I did this one scene in an episode of 'General Hospital', and that was my first job down in L.A. It was, like, my second audition, and I was like, 'Woo! This is easy! This is fun!' That was a really cool moment for me.

I'm aware me getting a role out of Chicago as a complete unknown is an insane anomaly, so I knew I'd have to get out here to L.A. as soon as the door opened.

When I first moved out to Los Angeles I was thinking, you know, I wanted to be an actor but I didn't really know what acting was about. I thought if I could be a model, or even do commercials and stuff like that for the rest of my life, I'd be happy.

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.

There's really nothing but one audition for a Disney Channel movie that separates me from 2,000 other brown-haired, blue-eyed guys in L.A., you know?

I'm one of the only actresses in Los Angeles who has never waited tables - yet - and I'm so terrible at holding trays. When we shot the 'Vampire Diaries' pilot, I totally spilled water all down Nina Dobrev, and she had to get her hair and make-up redone.

It's not like they just open the gate to Hollywood and off you go - you earn your stripes. I worked ferociously hard even just to get an agent.

I knew I wanted to act, and I was really driven, so I kept going for it. We moved to L.A. full-time when I was 8 or 9.