Quotes from Allison Tolman

I saw 'Fargo,' not when it came out, but probably a few years later, and went through multiple viewings - I'm sure my tape has been worn out.

When I first got out of school, I went on a children's theater tour, and I went around the country a little bit that fall, and it was the first time I went to Chicago. We spend a couple of days in Chicago, and I was really struck viscerally by the city.

I do find that when I see women who flesh out the television or film world and make it look more like the world I actually live in, I gravitate towards those characters.

My mother has stories of leaving me in the bath as small kid, like a 3-year-old, and there being mirrors on the side, and her going to get a towel and coming back in, and me making faces at myself, like, 'Now I'm happy. Now I'm sad.'

I worked in IT, which is all boys, and I was the queen of the boys. That's what I did. I was the one who knew where the paper towels were, which was very important. And I organized happy hours and things like that.

I really respect the Coen brothers as directors and as creative individuals and with the way that they handle the industry and the business side of things.

Coming out of Dallas and doing commercial work in Dallas - if you had improv background in Dallas, then you were instantly shot to the top of the list of commercial bookings because they loved improvisers because you could elevate the material.

Improv training allows you to get out of your head a little bit and take more risks, which is something I would like to continue to improve upon.

I worked for three years in a small IT firm in Chicago. I managed our client base, so I translated into human speak for our technicians. But our company was sold, and the atmosphere and the culture really changed, so I quit without having anything else lined up.

I never pursued voice hard enough. I've done musicals here and there, but I was never dedicated to really being one of these fantastic, operatic kind of singers that you have to be in some of these musicals.

I moved to Chicago and I did theater, and then I started writing and I stop acting and I did sketch. You know, I did all of the things that, if you were serious about doing television, don't do.

I was working, like, 14-hour days on 'Fargo,' and now if I schedule more than two things in a day, I'm like, 'Whoa, you guys. That's two train rides, and I have to plan for an hour-and-a-half lunch with my cat.'

As a newcomer, you know, you don't come out the gate as a singer and try to compare with Judy Garland.

The best thing I ever learned when I first started acting is that you audition, and then you forget about it when you walk out the door. Even when you have a callback, you can't bank on things until you actually book that job, or your heart will just be broken over and over again.

There are a few directors as a young person where I was kind of like, 'Well, these are a sure bet.' The Coens, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson.

I went to New York for the first time when I was in college for a school trip and, uh, it did not appeal to me. It was too much hustle and bustle.

I went to New York for the first time when I was in college for a school trip and, uh, it did not appeal to me. It was too much hustle and bustle. And I have since now found a New York where if I lived there now, I know where I would want to live.

'The Secret Garden' was the first musical that I fell in love with when I was a kid. My mom took me to see it, and it was the first one that I owned the soundtrack to and listened to over and over again.

The thing about theater that always and still kind of makes me edgy is that you work and work and work and work, and then you're just in performance mode, and then you have to just be on; the work is done, and then you just have to do it over and over again, so you're just constantly at that performance level.

I started getting Twitter followers after I started doing press for 'Fargo.' One of my best friends from college is a librarian, and she started tracking after each interview how many Twitter followers I got. She and her librarian friends were like, 'We're going to make a graph.' And I was like, 'Alright, nerds.'

I haven't been recognized out in public or anything. The strangeness of celebrity has been relegated to Twitter, which is kind of manageable.

Most of the time you spend filming a show is time you spend without the cameras on, when you're not acting.

I moved to Chicago when I was 28, and I wasn't completely idealistic about going to Second City and making a living from comedy, but I knew it would be great for the resume.

I was getting a lot of really nasty feedback about my weight during 'Fargo,' which is unfortunate because I am statistically a completely average-size woman.