Melissa McCarthy Quotes

I went to college at University of South Carolina and dropped out of chemistry, and to fill a class, the only spot they had left was a theater class. It was so annoying, but I took it and then I thought it was the greatest thing; the most socially creative. I dropped out of school immediately and moved to New York to start acting. I was 19.

I worked with my dad for 15 years. I apprenticed under him and decided I wanted to become an architect. So I went to college for it and then the acting bug got me.

Originally, theater was my life. It was what I assumed I'd spend my working life doing - if I was lucky. Then along came movies.

The truth of the matter is I stayed in L.A. raising my children, and when they went to college, I packed my bags along with them and came to New York and looked for parts in the theatre, because that's always what I preferred doing.

I was playing a relatively high level of hockey, and I thought that's what I wanted to do. But I had my first movie audition, and I was hooked.

I wound up getting my degree in sports medicine and nutrition because I wanted to work in the medical field. But I wound up taking a trip to Los Angeles and decided being an actor sounds pretty cool, too.

I dropped out of the business for 8 years, and I taught English as a second language. Then I decided to go back to acting, and I got 'Mad Men'.

Eventually, I went to college to study psychology, but I was getting more and more TV roles, so I thought, 'You know? It's kind of like psychology, but a little more selfish.' I took a break from school, moved to L.A., and never went back.

I left my career in Hollywood, moved back to New York, and went to Lee Strasberg and studied with him for the rest of his life.

Senior year in college, a kind of confluence of events came together to have me pursue a career in acting. I was planning on being a lawyer; I double majored in history and political science. I took the LSAT and did horribly on it, and that was one thing that made me rethink a new direction.

I did modelling for a year, but then I always wanted to be an actress.

My memories of the whirlwind '90s are a blur of work schedules. I was completing my B. Com. degree in 1991 when I took to modelling and acting in TV serials. A year later, I found my foothold in movies.

I first started as an actor, but there was no money in it, which is why I drifted into comedy.

I auditioned for 'HQ' and got it. I decided to stay in New York and ride this 'HQ' thing out. That was a good decision.

I went to an acting class for 3 years. But then I figured out that, since there were already 26,000 actors in SAG (Screen Actors Guild), I could make a better living as a stunt man.

When I joined the industry, people were not very appreciative of models turning to acting.

Scripts didn't exist during my time in Bollywood, or, at least, I was never given one. I don't want to act at all and am happy in my cave.

I did everything, I thought I was going to be in marketing, then I thought advertising then I thought I was going to be an architect and then I was like 'you know what, let me just be a soap star!'

I was the laziest person around. Suddenly, one day, I decided to become an actor. Thank God for that whimsical decision: else, by now, I'd have been a 140-kilo, butter-chicken-bingeing hotelier.

When I was a musician, I had no intention of taking up acting.

I took a break from doing music to concentrate on acting.

I did a lot of TV work for more than 30 years in New York and L.A., but I would get on the stage whenever I could.

I left acting in the summer of 1988 because I was unhappy with a lot of the irresponsibility that was going on in the entertainment industry.

I never thought I would become an actress.

I am looking at acting in a different way now. I always looked at it as equity to build the other things I was doing; now, I consider it a career.