Catherine Oxenberg Quotes

When I first started acting, everyone in my family did not want me to act.

When I told my mother that I wanted to be an actress, she said, you can't live here and do that, and so I moved out. I was determined to prove her wrong because she was so sure that I was going to go astray. And that's the juice that kept me going.

Rumors, stories... I'm used to them. I got my ribs removed, I was on 'The Wonder Years'... You know there's a different story every day.

It's really so depressing to be still listed in the Social Register after all the acting I've done.

My parents wanted me to be a doctor, and they weren't very happy at the idea of me choosing acting as a career. Everyone in my family went to university - my older brother is a lawyer - but when they saw me for the first time at the theatre, they thought, 'OK.' They like it very much now.

No one I knew in Sydney was thinking about how they might come to America and become a movie star. That would be considered delusions of grandeur. My parents were supportive, though. They just told me to keep at it as long as I was having fun.

I knew that I wanted to be an actor; how to go about it was the question. I went to Australia for my studies; from there I told my dad that I also want to do a course in performing arts, but my father refused. So I completed my studies and came back. But I kept poking him, saying that acting is something that I want to do.

I don't get bothered about statistics. If somebody had pointed out to me the odds of my being a working actress getting paid for what she does, I probably would have quit early in the game.

Our most bitter enemies are our own kith and kin. Kings have no brothers, no sons, no mother!

Where I come from, you don't just say, 'Oh, I'm going to become an actor.' Talk like that and they think you're crazy.

I don't think the media circus has ever been a shock to my life seeing as I was with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor when I was 17.

Where I came from, the idea of going into show business was just ridiculous; in fact I didn't tell anybody because I knew people would laugh at me. So I sort of snuck around and got some pictures and got a resume together and, of course, lied and said I did all kinds of things I didn't do.

When I decided to become an actress, I think I let some people down. It was a kind of rebellion.

I'm the first actress in the family, but when I'm home, I'm just Kimberley.

I assume the closest members of my family don't actually want to kill me, but the truth is that I have shamed and hurt them; they have to deal with the outrage that my public statements cause, and undoubtedly some members of my clan do want to kill me for that.

I think I knew acting was what I wanted to do. But I was from this small town and there was no place for an adult to recognise it.

I was lucky, and once I moved to L.A., I didn't have to get another job besides acting. But I wouldn't trade my previous jobs for anything.

When I was 16 and wanted to be an actor, people told me to go work at the supermarket.

I was told to avoid the business all together because of the rejection. People would say to me, 'Don't you want to have a normal job and a normal family?' I guess that would be good advice for some people, but I wanted to act.

Back in the 1980s, the 'News of the World' had specialised in digging into the privacy of criminals. In the 1990s, enriched by the excavation of Princess Diana's volatile life, they had widened their work to mine the activities of any celebrity, any public figure.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I figured I'm really going to make an attempt to become a real actor. And when I did that, I thought it was time for me to face my parents and tell them what I did.

When I left my home to become an actress, my father didn't give me a single penny. I struggled a lot, and they had no idea what I went through. My grandfather even asked me to drop my surname when he learnt I was joining films.

From Italy, I'd get calls from cousins and aunts saying, 'I don't think you should act. It's really tough. What are the chances?' This was around the time 'Flashdance' came out, and I was like, 'What about your dreams? I'm a maniac.'

I was painfully shy as a child; I was dyslexic. I had a single mother who's an immigrant. I just didn't believe acting was something that people like me could do on a professional level.

A month before I booked 'This Is Us,' I was like, 'Maybe I should move to Montreal and work in a coffee shop.'