Actor Competition Quotes

I think every young actor in Los Angeles went up for that role. It was between Frankie Muniz and me, and he pulled out, so I got the role.

I was very much aiming to go into movies eventually, like a lot of 'SNL' people. But, soon after I arrived, all these really good actors started, like Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis and Andy Samberg, and I thought, 'If I were casting a movie, I would put all of them in it over me.'

In orthodox film-making, you never shoot sequentially - but with improv, obviously every move you make has a knock-on effect; it is a cumulative process. I have improvised, on the non-scripted 'Timecode.' It can become entirely indulgent: actors smashing crockery and competing verbally.

When I was trying to find work after drama school in London, it felt like the same actors always got the plum roles, especially in television. We have a smaller market place, vastly fewer drama-producing networks, and they seem to compete for the same established names for those projects.

It may seem that with the new breed of actors - Arjun, Varun, Siddharth, Ayushmann, Sushant - there is suddenly too much of a hustle to make space for oneself, but acting is subjective. And we motivate one another.

You fight for certain roles, and you realise they're being filled by television and film actors, because theatre is constantly fighting for survival and they need names and faces and ticket sales.

My job is to go into that audition and be good enough of an Asian actor - or an actor in general - to land that role so they don't have to go out and hire a white guy. My job is to make sure I capitalize on these opportunities that other people created.

I have no problem having any actor from anywhere play a role. I'm excited for any actor that gets a job, I truly am. Even if it's a role that I'm up for and I don't get it, I never begrudge any actor having it work out for them.

There are far more good actors than there are jobs for them, so it's a big question of luck.