Azim Premji Quotes

I've done stuff to pay my dues and that's what actors are supposed to do, because I was a really bad actor when I was 18 or 20.

I've been very lucky in the characters I've chosen. Up until last year I was a nobody. I did jobs I booked because I needed to put food in my mouth.

Working on 'Gossip Girl' was a fantastic experience. It was my first real gig and I'm thankful for it - I got to learn a lot. I'm glad I got to explore getting comfortable in my own shoes in the background on a show like 'Gossip Girl.'

When I was new, I didn't know where my career will go. Initially, my films were not even successful, but then I learned a lot from my mistakes.

Every job I do, I like to think it makes me better or I learn things. It's all about how much something's going to stretch me or test me.

I've arrived at the place if I'm not taking a career risk, I'm not happy. If I'm scared, then I know I'm being challenged.

It wasn't until I'd turned 50 and had been in the business 25 years that I realized I might actually have a career as an actor.

And from the first time I picked up a basketball at age eight - I had a lot of difficulty when I first picked up a basketball, because I was a scrub - there were things that I liked about it.

You can't knock somebody for how they got into the business. I'm sure I'm gonna look back at 'Roswell' and some of my first movies and I'm gonna cringe.

No actor in the world started off at the top.

I'm never satisfied with my performance. I want to keep pushing myself. The great thing about being an actor is you're always learning. That's what excites me about the job and what continues to drive me.

If the material is challenging, it forces you to challenge yourself when handling it.

I'd never done a sitcom until the 'Michael J. Fox Show.' I'd never even guest starred in one until then. So it was definitely a learning curve, which is what I wanted. I wanted to do something new, to challenge myself.

Work is exciting when it's challenging. It should be something that makes me afraid initially and prompts me to ask myself whether I'll be able to do it or not.

I think it's very easy when you're a young actor starting out to just let everything unfold around you - you're not that clued up or confident, so you don't have the same opinions as you do when you're more experienced.

When I started acting professionally, it really felt like an extension of just playing around - it was all very organic.

It's a learning process, and now I know that even when you don't have a title, or you're not in a main event caliber program, you have to remain 'main event level' and always not allow anything to hinder that.

I did a whole lot of work before taking up my first movie. From TV commercials to Telugu films, I learnt a lot from them all.

I think many people grow on the job.

As a young actor, everything new and different is an opportunity and worth its while.

Coming to Chelsea was a big challenge for me.

I played St. Jimmy on Broadway I sort of caught the acting bug. But I didn't want to go full-bore into it because I have a lot to learn.

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

I got my first part in Silent Fall, 1994 - I guess I was 15 or 16 - which was really outrageous because I still knew nothing. I don't think I really learned how to land on my marks until after Empire Records in 1995, 'cause sometimes I'll see a shot in that film, and I'm like "Whoa, I just walked over to the corner."

My father taught me to always do more than you get paid for as an investment in your future.