Chris Rea Quotes

I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead.

Because I never set out to be an actress, I always feel so lucky and grateful. There are so many people who are really desperate to be stars, and it was completely the opposite for me - I fell into it.

It's only by coincidence I started working with my father - all because of King Abdullah's decision not to grant my promotion. God bless his soul, he did me a favor.

I wanted to quit acting and as soon as I decided that, the call for 'Velvet Buzzsaw' came through.

Then I was actually meant to be going home but for some reason I decided to extend for a week. Then on the final day by extension, finally an audition came through, and it was 'Into the Badlands'.

This directing thing just sort of fell my way and landed in my lap.

When I took off from Providence, my only professional aspiration was what it had always been: I wanted to be a sportscaster. By the time I landed in the desert, I knew I would spend the rest of my life trying to be a writer.

Getting into television was a total fluke.

I could have easily never worked again after 'Precious.' I could be back at my receptionist job and no one would be surprised, but I'm having a very crazy little career that no one thought would happen. Although that was never the plan.

I started as a musician. I play the saxophone, but from the age of 17, I realised that it's very hard to make a living as a jazz musician in Australia. So I went for an audition and got an acting job and, fortunately, I completely fell in love with that.

Long time ago, I was going to be a New York cop, then got involved with this girl who was into acting, then got bit by the acting bug myself.

Dumb luck brought on the move from business to acting. I had moved to New York when I was 23, in the year 2000. On a lark, I went to audition for a soap opera. I thought, 'Hey, this will be a really fun story to tell my grandkids one day, that I auditioned for a soap!'

When I started out, I wanted to be Billy Joel. The plan was to be a singer-songwriter of that ilk, and, then, I got waylaid - that's probably an unfair way to say it - from being a rock star by the musical theatre stuff, which I love doing.

For me, modelling has been an advantage because if I hadn't been modelling, I would never have been spotted as an actress. I didn't have any intention of becoming an actress.

Well, I liked it - that was the main thing. I liked it, but I didn't think of it in terms of a career. I didn't really know; I didn't really think about it. One thing just led to another until finally I quit my job as a salesman and found myself working as a photographer.

The film kept me from working as a secretary. It was a real stroke of luck. A miracle.

If I'm honest, I thought Westlife would keep going for longer than it did - we all did - but it sort of came to a natural end. When we decided we were going to split, I thought, 'If I'm going to sing, I'm going to have to do it solo.' Also, financially I was broke, so the decision was ultimately made for me.

I'd been kind of a hiccup in my parents' lives. They lost track of me and I didn't know what I was going to do with myself. And then fate reached in and took me in its hands. I was discovered right out of high school and started getting work.

I never really considered acting as a career. I kind of fell into it. Originally, I wanted to be a painter.

I am most grateful for having bad eyesight, which prevented me from becoming a commercial pilot and instead, led me to having the best job in the world - representing the people of California's 47th Congressional District.

My musical career was an accident.

I had no intention of becoming a performer, and yet under miraculous circumstances I was brought into the music industry fold. If divine powers hadn't intervened, I'd still be living in China working in some area of Sino-American comparative law.

Twitter wasn't planned. It just happened.

I've had a lot of successes as a songwriter, and I really have nothing to prove in that arena, so I'm just excited about the next challenge of pursuing this artist thing.

For me, running a set and directing has been the most rewarding thing of my life and a happy surprise, because it was never really on my radar.