Robert Picardo Quotes

I didn't want to be a Hollywood actress who every so often does a Broadway play. I wanted to be a Broadway actress who every so often does a movie.

If actors could actually make a living doing theater, that would be my first choice. Sitcoms are the closest thing to being onstage in front of an audience. If I had to choose, it would be theater and doing the occasional movie once in a while, and spending time doing nothing.

Looking at the actors I most admire - Judi Dench, Ian Holm, that whole generation - they all started in rep and slowly built themselves into the position where they could juggle theatre and film.

I wanted to get into theatre as I feel people take you more seriously than as a film actress.

Some people think all young actors should come up through the ranks of theatre. I don't necessarily think that's true.

I'd studied acting in New York when I left Pierre - that was the big thing that I did. I worked very hard at it, actually.

It is good if newcomers have a theatre background. It helps in films.

I come from a small village called Murud Janjira near Alibaug. I started doing theatre right from school days and later joined the Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, after which I joined an advertising agency.

Most actors and actresses are performative as people. It goes part and parcel with the profession and New York actors who are out of work, or actors anywhere out of work, are manic because you never know when the next job is going to come.

I'm glad to be an actor to be employed by people who are now 12, probably. I look forward to that.

My real difficulty was to become a normal person again, after having been a movie actress for so long. For me, at the time I was living in New York and Hollywood, a normal person was someone who made movies.

Most actors are lucky to ever get a job, period. I never forget that, because I have so many actor friends in L.A., and most of us barely ever work. And those of us that do, it's still only 60 days out of the year that we're actually on camera. It's an absurdly low number.

When I was a young actor, I just didn’t understand how to function in this business as an artist. It is a business, it’s called the film business for a reason, there’s money involved ... But on the flip side, now I do not let the business side of it rule either. It’s a balance.

The only thing hard about being an actor is being out of work. So, when you get a job - that part ain't hard at all.

The good thing about being an actress is that it's very children-friendly. I can work for three months and then I can have six months off. And then I can work for six months and have six months off.

For better or worse, I take my acting seriously. I may not have been in the best movies ever made, but I take it deathly serious, and I love being an actor.

I found a way into the acting business because I thought, well, it beats working for a living, and so that's what I do. But I still feel like a bit of a stranger in it all. I've never really belonged anywhere.

I used to be a wonderful auditioner. When I was living in New York, I'd audition every day. And I like to audition. But then it got to a point where I didn't like it anymore. So once it got to there and I also knew more about the business and I thought, "I can't do this anymore."

Acting is a very strange industry in that it flows in these weird ways, I'll be so busy for 6 months and then nothing for a couple months, so it's hard for me to focus and stuff.

I never had a real job. I started acting in high school, and then I started working. So, I never got to have that experience.

I'm really proud of the album. It's something I always wanted to do but I had to wait until I was ready. Shakespeare is a culmination of eight years of stand up experience and joke writing. I recorded two shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York. The crowds were great and that's what really makes an album.

A lot of people will say, "Oh, I got into acting because I wanted to explore my craft." They're a bunch of liars, unless they're Sean Penn, DeNiro or my dad. For the rest of us it was all about chicks and money.

My father went to college for drama in Pittsburgh, and so did my mother, and then my mother was a steadily working New York theater actress. They kind of quit when I was born. They did that for, like, 10 years before they had kids and then I was born and they were not into that lifestyle for kids.

I don't know if child actors are necessarily more screwed up than most people.

I'm not going to pursue it the way that actors pursue it which means going to all of the auditions and getting a job and all that stuff, because I don't really need to get a job because I have a job as a writer/director. That's how I make my living mostly now. So I don't need to make a living as an actress.