Jamie Bamber Quotes

It was like there's got to be some way to stay working and stay productive in Los Angeles. TV is that kind of thing for an actor. Unless you get stuck in one of these shows where you have to go to Vancouver.

Thank God for television. I've been able to consistently work in television even when people say, 'Oh my God, I haven't seen you since this film or that project.' At least I'm working. It's very difficult to get that next movie role. I'm grateful to have the television world accept me.

I was going to move to New York after college and had no interest in pilot season. I'd seen what happened on TV shows because of my dad, and I didn't want to open myself up to that. But 'Pretty Little Liars' had a very early audition, and my agents encouraged me to go even though I didn't think it would be my thing.

When I'm in Los Angeles, sometimes I hesitate saying that I'm an actor because people are like, 'Of course you are.' And I'm like 'No,' not, 'Of course I am.' In L.A., being an actor is like a pastime: everybody there is like, 'I was on this reality show; I'm an actor.' It becomes a word that is loosely thrown around.

Someone can do three episodes of 'The Bold and the Beautiful,' then turn around and book a primetime show. That's happening all the time.

Actors never retire, they just get less and less work.

I worked in television; I'm the Failed Pilot Queen, I've done so many television shows, pilots, theater ... when you do it for so long, I'm telling you, you get to the point where it becomes varied because you take what's available for a number of reasons. It's just an occupational hazard.

Sure, I'd love to be on primetime, but if I'm blessed enough to be picked up by another soap, thank God! It's so hard out there. And when you're not working, you feel horrible. You don't know when you'll get the next job. You don't know how long the soap genre will be around. I want to help keep these shows on the air and keep everybody working!

I love to read scripts. But I am very happy right now to say that I am a working actor. In this town of Los Angeles, the phrase 'I'm an actor' is overrated. So, I like to say, 'I'm a working actor.'

I would drive down in my Volkswagen Jetta to Los Angeles and just audition, audition, audition, audition, and hopefully get something. I did that for two years, and the third year I came down, I auditioned for 'How I Met Your Mother.'

I've called myself an actor - I won't say I've been an actor, but I've called myself an actor - since 1989. That's when I moved to Los Angeles.

It's a tough journey as an actor in Los Angeles.

When I was 13, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue television and film roles. I booked shows like 'The Secret Life of the American Teenager,' 'Liv and Maddie,' and 'Teen Wolf.'

The average actor might only be able to book six to eight guest star jobs a year - that would be high. So when you start doing the math, you can't live on that in Los Angeles.

A lot of student directors used to pick other students to be in their graduate films, so. I ended up doing a couple of them just for fun. Eventually, I got an agent through a friend and I did some commercials; then I got Knots Landing.

I'm not one of those actors where filmmakers that I admire ask me to be in their movies. I meet them at parties and they're nice to me, but they never ask me to work with them.

I said, going into acting, 'I'm never moving to L.A.,' because it scared me. But there was no way you could build an acting career in Orange County.

Trying to constantly get yourself into movies is extremely stressful and sometimes just impossible.

I wanted to go to New York and be a stage actress, doing things like Chekhov. None of that happened, and then I went to L.A. and an agent said, 'I think you belong in commercials and TV.' So I did that and got some opportunities that I absolutely love.

To get asked to do stuff like 'United States Of Tara' and 'Caprica' is terrific. I can't complain.

I moved to LA and decided to do films and television, mainly because the theater in New York is totally dead.

Since it was too difficult to get into the Screen Actor's Guild in New York, I moved to Miami in 1982 and started a successful career as a television commercial actress, obtaining my SAG card there.

As an actor, it's much easier for me to get work in the movies because nobody knows who I am except for the work that I've done in another movie. I really enjoy that.

And when I have lived elsewhere, every two weeks I have to fly back to LA. Even New York directors go there to audition. So I have to be there to a degree.

The displacement of scripted series by reality programming continues to be a severe obstacle to a working actor's ability to earn a living.