Kevin McCollum Quotes

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

I'm basically a starving artist.

I was an artist - I fancied myself an artist - I sold paintings at bars to pay my rent.

When you start out in the industry and things are tough, and you're not really making money, you question yourself: should I give up?

I think that so many people don't understand how easy it is to be broke, how easy it is to find yourself in a situation where you're in an absolutely foreign place.

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

The couple of years before I was declared bankrupt were the roughest. The bank letters, the pressure, the stress was awful. You're in this twilight zone of not knowing where your life is going, and yet you're in Westlife. Everything was great with the band. I was earning money, and it looked good.

There's something so romantic about being broke in New York. You gotta do it. You have to live there once without any money, and then you have to live there when you have money. Let me tell you, of the two, the latter is far better.

There were times when I was working three jobs at one time, and I was still auditioning just to make ends meet, and I was hoping that something was going to come through. Especially after you have two degrees, standing solid through the process is sometimes the hardest part because there is no guarantee.

All actors who have been around for a long time, which I have, and have been skint for long periods, which I have, find it difficult to turn down jobs. If I turn anything down my stomach turns over. I feel sick. It feels like gambling.

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

I have met too many people who are looking for work, worrying about their mortgage, uncertain about their health insurance, and doubting that things will get any better anytime soon. Not just concerned about the present, many of us are doubting the future.

I grew up very nice. But after college, my father said you're on you own. So I was dead broke for years. So I know what it's - I lived on 600 dollars a month for six years. I know what it's like to be dead broke. I feel bad for people who are struggling now.

About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

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

My friends started having children after college, while I was pursuing this crazy acting career and living hand to mouth. Plus, all my boyfriends were artists struggling to make a living. Having kids didn't make any sense - why would I take on more of a financial burden when I couldn't even afford a dog?

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.

No one really has any job security anymore, including myself.

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.

In my house, it is always a scramble from paycheck to paycheck.

When I was focusing on theater, I would go on for months without any work and could hardly pay the rent.

I was broke for more than 10 years. I remember staying up all night one night at my first company and looking in couch cushions the next morning for some change to buy coffee.

January, month of empty pockets! let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer's forehead.

I had to live on $17,000 a year until I was 33, because I was a failed artist until I was 29, when I made my first short film that went to Sundance.

With all the awards I've won, you'd think that I'd at least be able to make a living. It's a really terrible situation.