I always talk to my students about the need to write for the joy of writing. I try to sort of disaggregate the acclaim from the act of writing.
You don't go to Berkeley to become an actor. In fact, I don't think you go to any school to become an actor. You've just sort of got to go out there and act.
I was the youngest child and really spoiled. I loved to play make-believe. I loved pretending to be all kinds of different people and it just seemed natural that I would go into acting.
Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting.
As a dancer, it's hard because there's such a perfectionist quality that you really have to let go of while you're acting, because nobody wants to a watch a perfect person on screen.
Hey, don't knock Judy Blume. Without her, my younger self would never have been able to decode the random acts of madness perpetrated by the fascinating creature known as the teenage girl.
I think it's dawning on some Democrats that obstructing the Patriot Act, like they've been obstructing everything else, is bad for them politically.
I act because I have to, because I need to find out whether I can do it or not - that's what drives me and excites me and lights me up.
I've been home-schooled since I was in the fifth grade, mainly because I had two brothers who were acting. We were from Kansas but moved out to Los Angeles.
As I traveled from one country to another, no one knew anything about me. So I could be anybody, I could speak as I wished, act as I wished, dress as I wished.
I never feel more alive than when I'm on stage. On film you feel chopped up, you can be acting from the neck up, or the hand, there is a lot of close up.
The human race is already social, and the smartphone has everything needed to enable them to act on their social needs.
Somebody might get criticized for doing some movie that totally sucks, then turn around and be incredible. Every actor goes through that, not just musicians who act.
I quit acting when I was 11 because I was cast as a bouncing ball in 'Alice in Wonderland,' and I felt slighted and wounded.
I'm just starting to scratch the surface of what really makes me happy and it's taken me a while to admit that acting like a little child and being a jerk and a punk is fun.
When I left school, I got a job in a shoe shop and I used to save 15 quid a week and pay for my own singing and acting lessons.
I went to college in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University... studied acting there. Then I went to New York for about five years. I moved out here about 10 years ago.
I mostly did musicals and concerts when I was younger, and then I realized I don't quite have the voice for it, so I went into acting, which I enjoy more.
I've been training as an actor for six years. Nobody goes to acting school for six years. I mean, the college course is only four years! I absolutely trained.
I just feel as though it's become a situation where people have manifested this caricature of who I am, and they act as if there's no real person inside of it.
Why do writers write? Why do actors act? Why do painters paint? It doesn't pay much, unless you're very successful. It's who we are.
