Charlene Tilton Quotes

Yeah, I've only been acting since I was 18 out of high school.

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 have an agent and everything. I audition occasionally.

I took acting classes in college, and once I graduated, I decided to give acting a shot when I couldn't really think of anything else to do. It took me a couple of years to get an agent, and my first big break was The Fanelli Boys, which was a sitcom on NBC. Then I did a few television movies.

I mean, I've always had scattered interests, but I never went on stage to get an agent or anything like that.

A friend of my mom's was a casting director so, really as kind of a lark, I had a couple of acting jobs that had just enough exposure to give me the option to continue if I wanted to. I followed through with it.

I watched a lot of movies when I was younger and I remember, when I was seven years old, I asked my parents if I could have an agent for Christmas.

My father is an actor, so he brought me into his agency when I was young. It wasn't something I wanted to do until high school, when I started taking theater and really liked it. Then an agent found me and wanted me to come out to Los Angeles and give it a shot. I gave myself six months, but it only took me like a week to get a job.

I went to my agent and told them, 'I want to be on another Disney show.'

Sometimes when you're starting out with acting, you have to take what you can get to get experience and meet people.

I started acting when I was 13 in New York. Worked there for a couple years, then auditioned for a show there that was going to be filming here. Ended up coming out, getting the job and just staying.

Pilot season can be maddening. You're basically putting yourself and your talent out there to be scrutinized several times a day for months by network executives who have probably never acted in anything since their junior high school production of 'The Wiz.'

I've been auditioning since I was 7 years old.

One of the tough things about being an actor, probably the hardest thing, is getting your foot in the door, and my father handled that for me at a very early age.

I got an agent when I was 16 up in Vancouver, Canada.

I was not a child star. I was more like a young auditioner.

I told my parents I wanted an agent, and they decided to let me have a go at it. Then I started working right away. I was 12.

By 11th grade, I was in show business as a professional.

If you want to be an actor or actress out of high school or college, just know what you're getting in for. It's a job. If you look at it like a job, and you make it a career and a profession, then you're bound to do well.

I wanted to become an actor. I went to Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which is one of the main drama schools in London where you go when you are older. But I was doing the junior one when I was a kid. And some friends there had agents. I was fourteen and I was like, "I want an agent! It sounds awesome!" I had no idea what that was. I thought those guys looked like men in black. They were hanging around in suits all the time. So I luckily got a very good agent in London and started auditioning. And then when I was 16, I got my first film and I've been working ever since.

'Hairspray' was my first Broadway show. In the meantime, after the show was over, I would go down and do gigs at these clubs that I wasn't even old enough to get into. That continued on, and I think what ended up happening was that I just got these incredible opportunities on Broadway.

I ended up an actor, did my first professional union gig in 1974, and I've been doing it ever since.

I'm good at cold reading; I've made a living doing this, and most of the time I do audition, but it's very tough. It's a very uncomfortable, awkward process. You never get used to it, really.

When you're starting out, every line in a show or a commercial is like a huge success.

The first part of my career, how I was paying the bills was commercials. I was just doing tons of commercials.