Holly Hunter Quotes

First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.

I vowed I would never do a commercial, or a soap opera - both of which I did as soon as I left the Acting Company and was starving.

One of the big struggles for an actor is sometimes you have to take work that you don't necessarily want to do so you can pay rent.

Even though I love pro wrestling and love MMA, I'm here because I have to pay those bills. I'm here to make money; nothing comes free.

Most of the offers I get from Hollywood are for teen comedies. My manager thinks I'm crazy for turning down all that money, but I'm very picky.

I put steam on the table by being an actor. That is how I live. The longer I live, the more expensive it becomes. So I do my work. And I can't be immensely picky. How many beautiful scripts come in one's lifetime? I have had more than anybody, practically.

My passion lies in amazing, complex characters and really well-written stuff - not to say I wouldn't want to do a comedy if the right comedy came along... I'm an actor in Los Angeles, and I have a family I have to support.

The work that I've gotten in the hiatuses seems to indicate that I will have a little more work after 'Mad Men' than I did when I was scraping by while I was temping in New York, but who knows? People very easily could be like, 'Meh, we're done with that. We've got Jon Hamm. We're good without the weird one with glasses.'

Acting wasn't some long-held dream, and it still isn't, really. I'm just trying to make some money and pay the bills.

I will never say never, but I will say never to doing the more typical romantic comedies. You know, unless I'm getting audited and I'm on the street and I desperately need some dough and that's the only thing that I'm getting.

As an actor, we're unemployed a lot, so I'm familiar with the stress of trying to get a gig, and sometimes you take shows that you don't really want to do to keep the money coming in.

I've always freelanced as an actor, and you always have to worry about the next paycheck. When I booked 'True Blood,' I promised myself I would take advantage of the fact that for the first time in my career, I could afford to turn down big money to go and do small, character-driven indies.

I used to just do movies for alimony purposes, between plays.

Acting was always there in my mind, but I never tried too hard to take it up. I had to pay my bills, so I did whatever came my way. Music happened first, so I took it up quite passionately.

Obviously, with 'The Room,' I wasn't on set thinking 'I'm going to be Daniel Day Lewis' playing Mark, but explaining how I even got involved in the movie shows how we all get stuck in situations as actors - and this one ended up being one of the craziest.

I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.

As an actor, I'm in such a privileged position because my work is job by job. If something doesn't fit in with family life, there's more flexibility.

When you're a working actor you see a lot of scripts all the time, but to get to do something that's really well written it's a rare privilege.

I never wrote. I also never really thought about being an actor. But when it was time to go to high school, we couldn't afford private school, so I tried out for all the special schools in New York.

I've never consciously chased a particular kind of a film or role. I choose from what is offered.

I'm lucky that I get to do the bigger movies and the smaller movies.

I think, in the past, you could buy a flat and live comfortably on theatre and touring theatre, but you can't do that anymore, which means that you have to have a certain amount of celebrity and profile to, therefore, get TV and film work.

If a show comes and the content is great, I would never say no to acting on TV.

As an actor, you do feel very powerless... you are at the whim of the agent who submits you for a project, and then at the audition, you are at the whim of the casting director who will cast you or not.

I have a hard time being career-minded, but I want to be able to survive as an actor and do work that I think is important and that says something.