Quotes About Career

Live performance really terrifies me. I haven't done it, really, in years. I think that's why I retired from my brief career in stand-up.

The opportunity to be a part of the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Rio is a huge milestone in my career, and it will be the biggest performance of my life.

A good performance from me - no matter what kind of film it is, or who I'm acting with - will help me get better offers.

After I did Untamed Heart I wanted to do a film that was outrageous. I really wanted to do, you know, a performance. I don't want to allow my image to rule the choices that I make.

My dad is a director/producer and my mom is a dancer; she performed with Alvin Ailey, but I didn't even think about becoming an actress.

At 17, I became a member of the Boston Repertory Theatre. I had an opportunity pretty quickly and performed with the theater for six years.

I really never had any thought about being a legitimate actor, like a stage performer. I wanted to make movies. I wanted to do television and make movies.

It's difficult to be a mother and maintain a career as a performer - but then it's difficult in any industry.

You talk about meant to be - oh my goodness, I have never done anything else in my life except be a performer.

I wanted music to be a career. To base everything on fame to me seemed a dangerous thing - I wanted my foundations to be about improving as a performer and writer. No one could push me into going down that route of being a celebrity singer.

I became a performer because it was what I enjoyed doing.

My parents sent me to a dance class, so it was a road chosen by them, not me. But I enjoyed it so much I knew I would become a performer.

I'm a performer. We don't retire.

I was never a child actor. I was a child performer.

I haven't had a lot of comedy come my way as a performer.

I've been a live performer longer than I've been a television performer. For me, live is where it's at.

When I first got to New York, all I did was musicals. After a few years I had to make a conscious choice to close the door on musicals, because I was getting pigeon-holed as a musical theater performer.

I needed the time to go to college and spend years with people who aren't in the business and become a person on my own in order to be the person that I am and the performer that I am. I wouldn't give that up to be in blockbusters or have more money.

I've done fairly well as a performer and a DJ in the U.K., so 'Game of Thrones' really just opened up a whole new market for me.

An inevitable question asked of a performer who has made a modest success of his career is, 'How has success changed you?' It's a loaded question because it automatically assumes that there has been a change. And, in a sense, the assumption is a correct one. Basically, however, most people remain pretty much the same.

I think I would not be who I am if I did not have experience both as an audience and as a performer in those early days of my career. It taught me what entertainment is all about.

It's hard for a country performer to make a living in a Beatles society.

I grew up in show business, so I always knew I was going to be a dancer or a performer. I knew that was my business.

My parents were dead set against my becoming a professional performer before I finished college. They felt the most important thing a girl can have in any career is education.