Michael K. Williams Quotes

The only thing at the back of my mind is longevity, and I'm really lucky that I've constantly been in work since I left drama school.

I realized that work doesn't beget work. Good work begets work. So I got a lot more patient and stopped worrying about working all the time.

As somebody who makes his living in the movie business and wants to contribute to it, I think that the best chance I have of doing that is just consistently working with great directors.

The three things I said when I came out of school were I want to work consistently, I want to do good work and I want to be paid fairly, and that's happened. But I didn't become an actress for the money. I do it for other reasons.

As an actor, you think to yourself, 'I want to do good work,' but you also want the work that you do to make an impact in some way.

I got 'slotted' and started getting offers similar to the role I had in 'Maryada.'

I wanted to act and do good work with good people. I wanted to be a part of good content. That was my only ambition. So I made the most of the opportunities that came to me.

Honestly, I look at the project and I look at the people attached and I look at the director. If it's a role that I feel will help me, as an actor, then I'll definitely take it.

I am conscious about not getting typecast, but obviously I have to keep picking up great roles so that I don't get typecast.

I am indeed fortunate to work with some reputed directors like Balaji Sakthivel, Sekhar Kammula, and KV Anand sir. Each one of them has a different style, and every day is a learning experience for me.

I am really excited to be signed on by Julian Belfrage Associates, who manage some of the best talent out there, and I am really excited for this new dimension and beginning.

What I'd like to do is try as many different ways of working as possible. That's what I'm looking to do - collaborate with as many different directors.

I studied mass media and brand management and was looking to do an MBA. When an acting offer came by, I thought I'll do one film so that it would look good on my CV. Films happened one after another, in different industries. I'm so glad things turned out the way they did.

Your income is a direct reward for the quality and quantity of the services you render to your world. Whatever field you are in, if you want to double your income, you simply have to double the quality and quantity of what you do for that income. Or you have to change activities and occupations so that what you are doing is worth twice as much.

As an actress and just as a person, I've kind of been in a little bit of a bubble. So it was so great for me to see where I could go as an actress and to be around incredible people who are much more experienced than I am, like Harmony [Korine], James [Franco], and Vanessa [Hudgens].

I've been looking for ways to audition more, because it also keeps me sharp and keeps my ambition at its firm edge. That's something that I'm actively engaged in conversations about now with my reps: What's out there that I can really either put myself on tape for, or meet with the director for and read for? How do we do that? We're now at the end of the Star Trek reboot trilogies and whether we are going to do another movie remains to be seen, and so I feel like I'm at the end of this cycle that began with me coming out of school and auditioning and building my way up.

I just happened to have enough time to be able to take other parts between those first few Twilight films. But it wasn't about proving to people that I had something else to give.

You have to think like a businessman or a businesswoman, and I can't wait to continue to grow, as an actress, but to also continue to grow as a brand and show people that I have so much more to offer.

I've only been acting since 2009 and I learn more and more with each job. I think I prepare and I'm very focused and I have a good work ethic that I learned in school.

McLeod's Daughters was my first regular job out of drama school, and my first full-time role. That was great because I learned a lot, in terms of working in front of the camera. I learned a lot of technical aspects that you take for granted once you know them, but you have to learn them somewhere, along the way. It was a bit of a training ground for me, working in front of the camera and also dealing with media.

I've definitely become more commercially successful. I think everything has changed over the past two years. People seem to take me seriously now as a songwriter for other artists and as an artist, which is funny to me because I always thought I was good. I guess that's the main change, which is pretty interesting.

I think I integrated that over the first couple of years that I was out of school, mostly in auditions, to be honest.

I feel like I've found my voice in the actor's business. Because when you first get out of school and you're looking for jobs, you don't want to rock the boat - you can't rock the boat. You'll get known for being that sassy girl that, like, has no résumé and no one wants to work with her. But now, I'm "proven," at least in the television world, and hopefully in the theater world. I'm working on the film world. Unfortunately, it takes a while to build that kind of street cred. It's been recently that I even started to have more confidence in myself.

I don't think I began to be a professional writer until I learned my weaknesses and what I couldn't do. This forced me to compensate.

As an actor, you get to live out many professions. I just want to continue to evolve. My one goal in this business is just longevity and respect, and that's something I'll always have to work toward.