Darby Stanchfield Quotes

The scripts don't come pouring in; I have to fight for every part.

I'm used to working really hard to get a role. I was always auditioning and talking my way into roles.

I want a career and the thing is you really have to love acting. I didn't just fall into it and it wasn't just something I was good at. I've had to really work at this. I've had to fall on my face time and time again. You get 'no' 99 per cent of the time and a 'yes' just once.

It's not like you do 'SNL' and then get handed movie roles. You work, you audition for stuff and try to get it. I think, a lot of people, it's the goal to be in movies or just to be working in general. But yeah, some of us get lucky and get some movie roles, and it's nice.

I had heard about how people struggle and how hard it is to get into acting. But I did not care because it's something I love.

After high school, I drove out to L.A. with a friend of mine who had just graduated also, and I started auditioning. I got an agent, but it was all 'Saved By the Bell' auditions.

I graduated from a place called Whitworth College in Spokane with a theater degree, then in 1993 I moved to L.A. and auditioned and did very well there. My first gig was playing a skinhead in John Singleton's 'Higher Learning', and I played Glenn Close's son in a TV movie called 'Serving In Silence.'

I have the cliche 'struggling actor' story. I was waiting tables in New York, went out to L.A. soon after graduation to get some jobs, but it didn't work out. I wanted to cut my teeth in professional theater, so I came back to New York. It made my journey a longer one, but I really wanted to excel in the theater.

I consider myself a fortunate working actor, but I really work at it all the time. If I have a couple of weeks off, I'm taking class. You never stop. I started when I was 10 years old in Cleveland, and I've never stopped working my butt off.

All I've done is work... I arrived in Los Angeles in my early 20s and I've been pounding the pavement ever since.

It's funny - when I first started as an actor, obviously there were long periods of being idle and all you want to do is work. So if I ever get the compulsion to feel like I should complain or feel like I want to take a break, I just remember how I was before and be very grateful for it.

I feel like people who come out to Los Angeles hoping to be an actor give up too easily, and/or they don't put in the amount of time that it really does take.

It's not like they just open the gate to Hollywood and off you go - you earn your stripes. I worked ferociously hard even just to get an agent.

People weren't willing to bet on 'The Commercial Guy' when they were casting movies and television in the beginning, but I stuck around, and now it's slowly starting to pay off.

When you're just an actor, maybe not the top of the list guys, you get constant rejection and it's fun.

I really appreciate an actor who has paid their dues and who has learned hard knocks and has been rewarded in the end.

Eventually I booked a 2-line role on a show called 'JAG' and slowly the parts got bigger and better. I'm very thankful that I had to appreciate how difficult the business is before I had any kind of success.

I was in L.A., like, four months, and I got my first part. Then I was like, 'OK, I'm staying.'

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.'

The tale of the actor struggling to make it is oft-told for a reason.

Even when I was struggling and had horrible day jobs and wanted to be successful but wasn't finding my way in, I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to keep working at it and keep putting material out there, even if no one was paying me for it.

I appreciate everything. I built my career from very humble beginnings. Every job I've had, every next rung on the ladder, I appreciate because I know where it started - I started doing Pac-Man vitamin commercials.

I came to London. I spent nine months doing domestic work and gardening because I knew I wanted to get a West End show. So, when I was offered jobs in Stoke or Leicester or whatever, I'd say no. Eventually, I got 'Godspell.' It was gently building.

When I moved out to L.A., I went on 156 auditions before I booked a single thing.

After my debut in 2001 in 'Aks,' where I had a small part, I had to work really hard to get work in the industry. For almost three years, I had no work.