Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think that I have a lot of different personalities inside me, and I can just draw on them when I need to. And that, I don't know, maybe that makes me sort of schizophrenic in my real life, but it helps at work.
I really love this character I played called Becky Freeley in a T.V. show called 'Miss Guided'. We only shot seven episodes, and nobody watched it, and it was on for, like, a second, but I really liked that character.
You've heard the phrase 'There are no small roles, just small actors?' Well, I kind of disagree. There are small roles, but when you get a lot of them in a row, you can become a pretty successful actress, and that's what I've done.
I think when you're just counting on your voice, you actually need double the energy. I find myself acting out the scenes and being very physical while I'm recording because I think you can tell when someone is just sitting on a stool.
Sometimes I think to get to the emotional level of a scene, you don't necessarily have to have experienced the exact thing that person has experienced, but whatever you have in your life that has gotten you to that place is usually enough.
My perfect Valentine's Day would be coming home to a giant box waiting for me, and it has a gorgeous dress and high-heeled shoes and a handbag. And someone's waiting to do my hair and makeup. You can tell I've been in too many romantic comedies.
I'm sort of a carb-oholic. I love pasta, and I know it's really simple, but I love pasta with olive oil and crushed red pepper and maybe some Parmesan. I don't really eat cheese anymore, but that would be my favorite. I love a tri colore salad - it's my favorite.
Maybe when we were shooting in the school, I was feeling more like it. Every time I go back to a school for work, I always feel so huge. Everything seems so little. The lockers seem smaller than I remember and the length of the hallways seem shorter when you're a kid.
It's so cheap to just release a movie. You can do it by yourself if you have to. Put in on the Internet, if you have to. It's... I don't care anymore. It's what I do. I feel like, until now, I just do pilots. It doesn't bother me. It's just about the experience. I get to learn.
It's really exciting and also it makes me nervous, because I'm like, "Well, I figured out how to perform this episode, but what if I'm not as good at what they write for next episode?" But that's part of the challenge, and that's what, I hope, ultimately makes me a better actor.
I like television medium because it feels like we're doing a play, and I learned how to act in theater school, so that comes very naturally to me, this format. I like that people can laugh out loud when we're working. I like that we can make mistakes, unlike being onstage, where you can't.
I remember my choir teacher in high school told me, 'When in doubt, sing loud.' I'm a terrible singer, but I always auditioned for the musicals, and would get cast in them because I really would just put it all out there. That was really good advice, and I think it works for everything, not just acting.
I always say I'm not going to care this time, but I always do. Like, I did one this season called Tax Man with Martin Short, which was like, "Are you kidding me? Doing a pilot with Martin Short? Like, career high." And I just assumed, because it's Martin Short, like, "How are they not going to pick that up?" But they didn't.
I like working in television because it's an evolving story that you tell. That's also one of the things I don't like about it, too. Because sometimes it's hard, and just when I think I've nailed something, it changes or we have to change it or change the joke or the character is evolving in a way that I don't have control over.
I like the idea of doing a little movie every week. When you do a movie, you don't know when it's going to come out. In a year, you forget about it. I forget stories that happened on set. I forget who I worked with. I forget my lines, my characters' names. This is so fresh. We make it, and it's on TV. It feels more like a living, breathing thing.
I have played several characters that are crabby and cranky. I don't know if I'm just not a very well-developed human being or if I don't know myself very well, but I tend to find I can take on elements of the characters that I'm playing. When I was playing a character like Becky Freeley in Miss Guided found that I was insanely positive and happy all the time.
Sometimes I get really shy when people recognize me, but when it was from Arrested, I'd be like, "So what do you like about it? You watch it? Will you try to watch it when it's on, and not just TiVo it? Because if you don't want it to be taken off the air...." It was really sad when it got taken off the air. But it's really cool. It was nice to have a small part in something with a big life.
Being able to go to work every day with such a good friend - especially in this business where your jobs are short, the turnover's fast, and you're working all the time with so many different people, and there's so many different projects going on that the odds are that you could actually book something that hopefully, knock on wood, is a long-term job with one of your best friends - is too good to be true.
I don't think there's a ton of new new stuff about doing a sitcom or doing a multi-camera show, but they work. They're fun, and they're energetic, and they're short. And when you fall in love with one - like, I will watch Seinfeld, I'll watch Will & Grace, all those reruns. I just can never get enough. I watch the same ones over and over and over. I watch the same movies that make me laugh over and over and over. I was hoping to be part of something like that.
I think that comes with a collaboration with the writers. I think that we get cast in edgier roles because we are a little more offbeat, so people - as we get to know the writers, and as the writers get to know us, they start to write around us more, and that's why I think the pilot is not always the best way to get to experience a new television show, because we're fitting ourselves into these characters. Whereas as the show evolves, they're writing the characters for us and for our strengths and weaknesses.
Not that my life has been so crazy and exciting but, it just seems like if I can bring more of myself to the role. It's going to help keep it spontaneous and exciting, instead of thinking in terms of this box of a human that I have to slip myself into every week, which I tend to do more when I'm shooting a movie. On a television show, this is all kind of still new to me, doing many episodes of something, so I want to try to keep it as fresh and close to home as possible, so it doesn't get stale and I still like it every day.
I never really put pressure on myself to make things seem new and spontaneous, mostly because I think everything is kind of derivative at this point. I enjoy the old-fashioned idea of like, His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby, those old movies. Those relationships are kind of where I've gotten inspiration for this character and this relationship. But I think what makes it new is just the words coming out of my mouth personally, and my take on it based on my own personal life experience is hopefully going to add something a little different, and add some flavor to it.