I initially wanted to be a teacher, and then I was going to become an engineer and build bridges and highways, but pretty soon I went into the business world. I never did get to be a teacher except in a different way.

I did not study science at school until I was 13, when I was totally turned on by a seemingly dreary old teacher who suddenly, unannounced, manufactured a huge explosion in the middle of a totally boring monologue. From then on, all of his class wanted to make explosions.

During my own gap year, I learned an invaluable lesson - that I was a lousy teacher. Even though the children I 'taught,' in upcountry Uganda, were desperate for qualifications, they largely ignored me. Until, that is, I realised that they wanted to hear about other young persons around the world.

At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even how I replied that I wanted to be a poet.

My mother wanted me to be a teacher. She had this vision of me walking across the quadrangle in an Oxford college wearing my academic gown.

I didn't read so much Japanese literature. Because my father was a teacher of Japanese literature, I just wanted to do something else.

I had a great drama teacher, and he sort of made out drama school as this incredibly difficult thing to get into: 6,000 people apply every year, and some of the schools only have 12 places. It's a phenomenally difficult thing to get into. And that excited me - I wanted that challenge.

I wanted to be a teacher.

My mother wanted to be a teacher when she was young, and my father didn't approve of it, so she fought very hard to become one. And she did it. So when I said I wanted to become an actress, my mother was very supportive. She always said to me, 'There's no such thing as 'can't.'

I think eventually I want to become a teacher, like my father wanted to be, and hopefully positively influence the next generation.

I wanted to be a ballet teacher.

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 always wanted to be a teacher.

In my teens, I developed a passionate idolatry for a teacher of English literature. I wanted to do something that he would approve of more, so I thought I should be some sort of a scholar.

It was my family that wanted me to be a teacher. That was safe, you see. To be a painter was terrible.

Faulkner turned out to be a great teacher. When a student asked a question ineptly, he answered the question with what the student had really wanted to know.

I was strongly encouraged by a science teacher who took an interest in me and presented me with a key to the laboratory to allow me to work whenever I wanted.

I had a heartbreaking experience when I was 9. I always wanted to be a guard. The most wonderful girl in the world was a guard. When I got polio and then went back to school, they made me a guard. A teacher took away my guard button.

My father was my main influence. He was a preacher, but he was also a history and political science teacher, and since he was my hero, I wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a teacher.

All I wanted was to be a university teacher.

I wanted to become a kindergarten teacher like my mother.

I first decided to become an actor at school. A teacher gave us a play to do and that had a major impact. At first, I wanted to work in the theatre, but there was something about the ambience of film, especially American films, that always attracted me.

When I first started my acting career, I only knew what my acting teacher taught me. When a director gave me an impromptu direction, I didn't know what he wanted me to do, and I wanted to escape from the place.

I wanted to be a Teacher with a big T: teach the whole planet. It led me into writing and speaking to large groups.