Career Turning Quotes

Since that moment in Houston where I fractured my collarbone, I've experienced a lot more experiences in the NFL than I had up to that point. A lot of them great, some of them not so great.

If I didn't start singing in the cabarets and on my albums, I could have never even tried something like 'Capone.'

The Kelley fight meant that much because it's always when a fighter from this country goes over to America and proves himself, it's always make or break in a British fighter's career.

I think 'The Witch' was actually my 100th job. Only took me 100 jobs to get a lead! But it did change things a lot. It was a magical thing for Rob Eggers to pick me out of the all the actors he could have for that part. It was an amazing part. It's changed my career massively.

When I did Sean Penn’s movie, I think I was living in, like, a $500-a-month room, and someone called me up or bumped into me and asked me if I’d come up to work for a day. That sort of got me going a little bit. But it wasn’t until Sin City [2005] that I kind of got back into the game.

There would have been no Barcelona, and a lot of other things besides, for me if I hadn't signed for Celtic.

Very early in my career, I almost went to journalism school.

Had "Malcolm in the Middle" been picked up I would not have been available for the pilot of "Breaking Bad." And right now someone else would be sitting in this chair talking to you. Not me.

I don't know if I would have had the same career had I not done 'GoodFellas.' Probably not. Would I have been cast on 'The Sopranos?' Who knows if there would have been a 'Sopranos?'

After 'Dum Laga Ke Haisha,' I didn't know which way my life will head because my debut was with a very unconventional role.

When I started acting, doing theater stuff at a young age, I was always the comic relief-type roles, so I knew I had a funny bone and could make groups of people laugh, but I didn't really take it seriously until I started getting paid on a weekly basis; then I was like, 'Oh, well, this could be a lifestyle.'

Once I hit 45, there was a real downturn. But I got an incredibly provocative, delicious lead role in a television series called 'Saving Grace,' and I loved the character.

I was thirty when I did 'Jack.'

I had to get a job, and of course, the job was 'The Godfather.' That made me be something I didn't know I was going to be. I became a big-shot director.

As an actor, you've worked very hard, and you've been doing this for 20-some years, and William Morris was never interested - or any studio, either - in your company or as an actor, and then 'God's Not Dead' happens, and now everyone calls you.

I was maybe halfway through my career, and I was shooting a Nike commercial, and the director came to the trailer and said, 'Hey man, you're really gifted at this. I get a lot of athletes that come in, but you were prepared, and you made everything seem very natural. I really think you should look into this.'

I think 'Soul Food' had the biggest impact on me because that's where I was really able to shine as an actress and because I also met my husband there, and that was a huge turning point in my personal life. So, that show will stick with me forever and ever and ever.

'Slumdog' initiated a chain of events like going to Cannes and being invited to the Cairo Film Festival, which changed my perspective of cinema and of being an actor forever.

Steeler was a good start for my career. They didn't play anything dangerous - everything was formulaic - but I played all this crazy stuff on top of it, and that turned out to be an interesting combination. But by the time 'Steeler' came out, I was already out of the band.

Before Ricky Gervais came along, I was a jobbing actress and perfectly content if a little unfulfilled: I'd just done an advert for Imodium. That year, 1999, I auditioned for four parts. 'The Office' was the only one I got. What its success gave me was freedom of choice.