Steve Guttenberg Quotes

Paul and I were both struggling actors. One night he would serve me in a restaurant, and the next night I would serve him. It was what out of work actors did.

As children we had traveled only in cars and led a lavish lifestyle. After father and we parted ways, we had little money to afford even petrol; I used to travel to the Tollygunge studios in the south of the city from our Dumdum home in the north by bus. I would do any role that came my way: hero's friend, or brother, or son, just about anything.

I am, as they say, the classic starving artist.

As an actress for most of my life, I am profoundly familiar with poverty.

I came to New York with $500 and I had to live on that, but thankfully I was taken up by photographers quickly.

When I was writing 'Withnail,' I was so busted flat that I had one lightbulb that I would carry around the house with me. I mean, really. No furniture, no money, and I was hoping to be an actor, but I could never get a job.

I do smaller films, I'm not getting big paydays. I feel like we're just kind of scraping together here.

Being a hungry artist, you don't have the luxury of buying whatever you want. There were years of me doing a lot of odd jobs, this and that just to make ends meet.

I went to a few really bad commercial auditions because I needed the money, and when you booked a commercial, your life was made: you could eat.

Physical hunger and physical poverty is something I could only imagine. I've been poor when I was in China... As kids we never had to starve, but just didn't have enough meat, enough rice.

Whether it's New York or somewhere else, the metaphor of 'Avenue Q,' which is the place you live when you can't afford to live anywhere else - and we've all been through that in our journey. As I always say, at any moment I could be back on Avenue Q if I pick the wrong show.

At first, we lived in very, very small places... with my mom cleaning houses and scrounging up just enough to keep us in town with a working car. She introduced me to my first agent, and I started with stand-in work, then eventually commercials and television guest-shots.

The time after college and before music was really rough. I couldn't afford food. I was eating bread and butter for five months. Living in New Orleans, I couldn't afford to take care of myself. I had no health insurance.

Every day I've got to hear about unemployment and people starving.

My mom thought I might be good for voiceover. She thought I had a cute voice, so maybe I could do a cartoon or something. And while we were looking into that, we also thought I should get into theater acting, so I tried it and the first audition I went on, I booked it. And it kind of just snowballed from there.

I was able to support myself by acting alone about six years ago. Until then, I was just scraping by.

I'm basically a starving artist.

I can live in L.A. as a struggling artist. I cannot live in New York as a struggling artist.

In my early days, I was about 145 pounds. I was really a starving artist; the poster child for starving artists.

There have been moments where I'm like, 'I don't know how I'm going to survive and pay next month's rent.' And the next month I'm filming a movie in New York City.

I'm happy being an actor, it's what I have always wanted to do. I'm just lucky I got to do it so early.

I went from buying my own condominium and a car for myself when I was 17 on 'The Facts of Life' to not being able to pay my rent. I was at the unemployment office all the time. I had to sell my record collection just to make ends meet. And then I started getting these voice-over jobs.

I didn't pursue acting as a career until I got my first job. I didn't think I could make a living at it. You hear such horror stories about how hard it is to get work as an actor. It is hard, but I decided to roll with it.

I started acting professionally when I was about 17. I worked immediately, but a year into it, I did an independent film in Canada, and that started it all. It was proof that maybe I could do this as a career.

I was an out-of-work actor for 10 years.