You can't be an actor in a small town-you have to go to New York or L.A.
I don't have that drive to be in this field, climbing up, doing bit parts in movies to make a big movie. But I'm lucky I get to also do acting - it's fun. I should probably just take an acting class on the weekends - that would be enough for me.
When my oldest brother started acting. From there, I wanted to act myself. That's the long story short.
I really think that everybody would like to be an actor. Why wouldn't they? It's great work if you can get it. The one thing that prevents most people from saying, 'I'm just gonna go to Hollywood!' is that it seems unrealistic.
There wasn't very much going on in London about five years ago, and I just took a ticket on spec and went to Los Angeles. I think it was in my second week that I auditioned for 'Battlestar.'
When I was 14, a lot of people said, "She's such a good actress, she loves theater, she looks like a woman, she should consider moving to L.A. and trying to do this professionally." My parents were hesitant, but they would take me.
Never thought acting was something you could make a living at. It wasn't until I was in college, and got a lead in a play, that I began to realize I might just be able to blunder into this profession.
I do write, I enjoy it. But I like acting. I wanna be in front of the camera as much as I can as long as I can, so I'm still pursuing that. There's just a lot going on. I write standup, so it's just a matter of time. I just need more time!
I came out to California to live with my mom in Orange County for a while, and then I came up to Hollywood. I had just turned nineteen. I took an acting class at Playhouse West and decided, 'Wow, I think I can do this!' I studied really hard for three years before I got an agent.
I had a deliberate plan to get into movies by becoming a model, so I went to New York and got a job pretending to be a mannequin in store windows.
Becoming an actor? If it's not a calling, don't do it. It's too hard.
This is a terrible confession to make, but after I left the Army I had a number of things to try. I had a great conceit to think that if all else failed I could always go to Hollywood. So when all else did fail I really went to Hollywood. And then I found out how wrong I was.
I even asked [Saniyya Sidney] why she wanted to be an actor and she said, "I'm serious about this. These other little kids they want to play, and I don't have time for that."
People always think that I came from this dynasty of actors. But that's not true, because it was just dad. So as a child... I got to try it out really young... and I really loved it. I pretty much made my decision back then to become an actor. And then, more and more of us have joined the trend. So now, we're definitely an acting family.
Nobody ever said, "Well if you want to be in movies, you should go to L.A." Everybody else was going to New York. So I went to New York with them. And then I was like, "How am I supposed to get a movie?"
Los Angeles is where you have to be if you want to be an actor. You have no choice. You go there or New York. I flipped a coin about it. It came up New York, so I flipped again. When you're starting out to be an actor, who wants to go where it's cold and miserable and be poor there?
I remember lying in bed one night when I was 15 and deciding I was ready to go into acting properly. I'd put it off until then because I didn't feel I was ready to handle the rejections.
The scripts don't come pouring in; I have to fight for every part.
When you're a young actor you ring your agent every evening. It's not like when you're in Hollywood where you do one picture a year. You just hope you get a day on television.
I had friends who were actors. I had some close friends who are actors before I had fallen into it. And but I never approached anybody about doing it. But once I had been approached, I said, 'Sure and I'll give it a go.'
Decide very early on: do you want to be an actor or do you want to be famous? Because they're very different routes.
I started acting in second grade - my first role was in the Thanksgiving play. I was the Indian chasing the turkey. All the other mom's encouraged my mom to get me into acting after that.
I did some background work for a movie called 'Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius' in Atlanta and got bit by the bug. That was it. I saved a few thousand dollars and packed up my car. I had hoped that I would start working just doing some modeling stuff or something while I studied acting. I thought I could support myself that way.
I kind of weirdly fell into being an action hero...I have no f- idea how that happened. You have to remind people that you want to act rather than just run around
The idea of being a professional actor never occurred to anybody, including myself, for a long time.
