Yara Shahidi Quotes

When I first came to California, it was fun and exciting to get any part in any movie and get paid for it. Because of my size and my background, it seemed like I was right for just about anything.

My first movie role was a supporting performance in a Canadian film called 'Final Lady.' It was a great opportunity for me at the time.

I've been fortunate to get involved with 'Short Term 12.' I was just a young teenager on the Internet, clicking on anything that had the word 'actor' in it. One day, someone called me in for a movie audition.

After Cannes, my agent told me to get the next flight to LA. He was right. I had a part in 'Prime Suspect 3' by the end of the week.

Well, I'll keep on auditioning and one day maybe I'll go to LA and try out for films there.

Living in New Zealand, that's something that you'd like to do as an actor, but very rarely do you get an opportunity to get such a good springboard as 'The Hobbit' to help you get international work.

I'd love to be in a feature film, and I don't just mean in a starring role - it could be a small part. And I would like to act in television, to do comedy and drama.

I began my career performing in plays and musicals in New York, but by the mid-'80s, opportunities in Hollywood beckoned and I made the move to Los Angeles. It was a good decision. Work took off, but most important, I met my family out there - my husband, Bill, and the children we would adopt: Elijah, Mae-Mae, and Aron.

I've been really lucky. When I decided to go to LA I said I was going to quit modelling and just go and see how I do. In the first two weeks I got three movies. I was so excited I had all my furniture shipped out from New York.

I've only actually done one studio film. I want to be left alone.

'Naked' kind of kicked me off into the film world. It just so happens that all of the things that I have been offered have been films, and I've enjoyed the travel that goes along with that.

Terry Malick offered me three parts in 'The Thin Red Line.' I was busy shooting other movies while he asked me the first two.

I started doing movies when I was 14.

I never thought I would do something in Hollywood after I started with a series in the West, which was a small stint.

Well, the only way I can get a leading-man role is if I write it.

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 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 just wrapped this movie called 'The Wedding Crashers' which was a pretty big break for me.

By being a waiter 100 percent, I think I was a lot like any other actor in New York. I had credits because I'd work lunches during the week, and then on a Wednesday would go be lucky enough to be in a movie like 'Kinsey.'

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

You know, I really wish now I'd had the nerve to become an actor. Because I'd have been Robert Redford, no question.

The first thing I ask when I'm offered a part is, Who's the director? which is something they never understand in Los Angeles.

When I started in films, it never really occurred to me that I could make a career out of acting.

On-camera stuff just hit. I decided to do it to supplement my voice-over career, but I ended up falling in love with it, and it actually hit a lot harder than my voice-over career.