John Mahoney Quotes

I don't feel like I properly started acting until I did my first play, 'Tusk, Tusk.'

When I moved to New York out of college, that was my goal. To be a stage actress. And to do dramatic works. Like 'Madea', and 'Night, Mother', and 'Sam Shepard', and all that kind of stuff. That's what I really wanted to do.

When I started acting, my whole focus and intention was to work as a stage actor in a company where you're asked to different roles - do a comedy, do a tragedy, etc. I haven't had any reservations about jumping from one type of genre to another.

My very first acting job ever, the first time I got paid to be an actress, was in 2001, right between my sophomore and junior year in college, when I was just 19 years old. I got paid $250 every two weeks, 10 shows a week, to be in the Utah Shakespearean Festival. I was Calpurnia in 'Julius Caesar.'

I think by eighth grade I knew I wanted to be an actor. I'd done church plays and stuff, but my first actual acting class was in eighth grade. I was obsessed with it.

I took an acting class at Cerritos Junior College and I did a handful of plays, maybe five or six plays.

I thought the best route to being the great actor I wanted to be was to play the great classical parts.

I think if you're an actor, then you can work on stage - but if you've never done it before, you're going to have picked up a few things that you're going to need to change when you're working on stage.

I'm lucky enough to say my day job is acting. I cut my teeth as a theater actor and playwright in New York.

It just clicked that it was the next step for me; choreographing didn't interest me, and opening a studio wasn't a passion for me. I didn't know if I'd be very good at acting, but then my first scene in acting class... I just loved it.

I knew I wanted to act since I was 10, but I didn't actually start acting until I was in high school. My favorite play was 'Lilies of the Field.'

When you're 19 and writing plays, you think every actor is full of it. They just can't handle your brilliant material.

I first started stage acting at the age of four when I joined a local Stagecoach group.

All of my friends at drama school were still sat on the floor doing voice exercises and I was doing scenes with David Tennant and Catherine Tate.

Yeah, I've only been acting since I was 18 out of high school.

I've never been in an acting class in my life.

My introduction to acting was through theatre, so I actually saw a couple of Broadway shows that made me want to be an actor.

I got into acting my junior year of high school. We got a new hot drama teacher and I was like 'Alright, I'll try drama.'

I was an actor for over a year before I ever saw a play.

I've always been in school plays and performing monologues and taking drama. Now I'm in acting classes. I do it the real way. I want to be a working actor. I would love that. I just like being on a series and having a script, and I want that to be my nine-to-five.

I never went to drama school.

There is probably some great acting that goes on in movies from people who have never been on a stage, but if you are in for the long haul, you'd be missing an enormous part of what being an actor is if you're not part of theater.

My first big role was when I was 17 and I got the part playing Maria in 'West Side Story' in my school production.

It's a dream to be in a company of actors.

I've always felt like I've been in good shows.