At Cornell, my acting teacher said you cannot be religious and be an artist. I sort of got it, because faith is a comfort and art comes from a lot of places, in a lot of people, from the dark chasm.

I still don't know what I'm going to be. I love acting. I would love to be an English teacher. I would love to be a housewife and have a chateau in the South of France, I would love to be a singer that travels to cafes around different towns.

When I was in junior high, a foreign-history teacher started a theater class. So I got my feet wet there and through high school, so I was very fascinated with acting as a means of expression.

When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, 'I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.' I wouldn't have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn't a clever man.

Life changed at 40 for me, as predicted by my acting teacher when I was leaving college. I became more hirable and more interesting... I'm not sure why.

I trained in Toronto with a private acting teacher, who was wonderful, for years growing up.

I had a great acting teacher in high school. But I didn't like acting because it took too many people to get the job done. You have to talk to too many people and listen to others' opinions. With music, you get a few friends together and just make it.

I decided to take a stab at acting. I entered the American Academy of Dramatic Art, where one teacher told me I'd never make it - I was too tall.

Actually, acting turned out to be the perfect job for me, because I had a lot of different interests. I thought about being a priest at one point. I thought about being a teacher. I thought about being a lawyer. But I think acting is probably the best job for me.

I didn't want to be the archetypal sponging brother-in-law, so I didn't go into acting when I got to the States. I thought, 'No, I'll go to school and then I'll be an English teacher; that'll be fun.' But I was horrible as a teacher. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't inspire those kids to take an interest in Milton and Shakespeare and Donne.

I got into acting my junior year of high school. We got a new hot drama teacher and I was like 'Alright, I'll try drama.'

I think good actors are born with a kind of native gift. When you study too much with an acting teacher, that gets taken away. You lose your sense of spontaneity.

Once I accomplish one thing and I'm satisfied, I try something else. I may be 50 and doing something totally outside of music and acting. Maybe I'll become a kindergarten teacher.

I had my heart set on becoming an English teacher, but stumbled into acting after meeting a theatrical agent in my dad's restaurant in San Diego.

My acting teacher used to say that people reveal themselves in their opposites.

I took an acting class. After the first day, the teacher quit, so they said take another. When I saw 'How to be a Stand-up Comedian,' it resonated. I realized I'd rather make 200 people laugh than make one person cry.

Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, I did not choose acting; acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted.

I was raised in New York City and raised in the New York City theater world. My father was a theater director and an acting teacher, and it was not uncommon for me to have long discussions about the method and what the various different processes were to finding a character and exploring character and realizing that character.

I went whole hog at the actor's lifestyle - really embraced it. I had by then known how much I loved acting already, because I discovered acting from a teacher in the seminary - that's the first place I ever did it, in the seminary.

My father was a writer and an acting teacher.

I think my parents were happy that I'd gone to university and gotten a degree in history so they thought, 'Well if acting doesn't work for him, he can always become a history teacher or something.' Fortunately, the acting worked out.

I do readings at the public library. I just did a benefit scene night for my old acting teacher.

Teachers make a difference, and we would serve our students better by focusing on attracting and retaining the quality teachers by raising teacher pay.

I was 20 years old, working as a roofer and a telemarketer and driving a taxi, just barely getting by. A friend of a friend suggested I try acting. I was like, 'Why? What am I going to do? Community theater?' But I took a class, and the teacher thought that I had potential, so I moved to Vancouver and started auditioning.