A Quote by Betty Gilpin

I started doing plays in New York while I was at Fordham, but I did graduate by the skin of my teeth. — © Betty Gilpin
I started doing plays in New York while I was at Fordham, but I did graduate by the skin of my teeth.
Woodie King Jr., in 1970, had started a company called the New Federal Theatre, which was ensconced at the Henry Street Settlement. I did a number of plays there, and I auditioned each time. The plays were mostly new. New York was very fertile ground; there was a plethora of African-American plays being done.
I never had intention of coming to New York or L.A. and actually doing more than scraping by - you know, doing plays. And as my career sort of progressed of its own volition, I did come to New York.
I had been doing plays in New York and on a whim we packed up and moved West, I started doing commercials and plays and guest star spots on TV and one thing led to another and I got Knots Landing.
Well did graduate summa cum laude from Fordham University.
I grew up in Cleveland and started doing plays in high school. And I went to the University of Illinois, and I majored in drama. And after school, I went up to Chicago, because I didn't really know anybody in New York or Los Angeles, and I knew people who were doing plays in Chicago.
I started working in New York City as an actor and did many plays. I did regional theater, smaller theaters, children's theater.
Woody Allen stayed so good because he never left New York. Howard Stern stayed so good because he never left New York - Mel Brooks when he just got out of New York was doing 'Blazing Saddles;' when he left New York he started doing stuff like 'Robin Hood Men In Tights' - he was in L.A. too long. He lost the edge.
Honestly, people told me to. It was weird, I graduated from school, I never thought I'd live in L.A. and I always wanted to be to New York. I assumed that would be my trajectory - that romantic ideal of moving there and doing plays Off-Broadway and being scrappy about it. Then we did a showcase in New York and a showcase in L.A., and for whatever reason the response that I generated in L.A. was significantly more enthusiastic.
I'm from New York, and I started in New York, which I think is a huge advantage because I wasn't overwhelmed by the city. I understood the city. All of the distractions that could come with somebody that started comedy in New York didn't really happen for me.
I think I can work anywhere, but you don't get the same kind of inspiration everywhere. New York theater has become a big inspiration for me. I only started writing for the stage myself because I like to see the good, mostly off-Broadway plays in New York.
I actually wanted to be a police officer like my dad for the longest time, up until my sophomore year in high school when I started doing plays. I did plays when I was little, but in high school, I started getting into acting.
I always considered myself a songwriter, but I didn't move to New York with plans of doing that; it just sort of happened. Everyone thinks that I moved to New York strictly to play music, but I totally just happened to fall into playing with Woods, and it all got started from there. I just went to New York to hang out.
A play is a hard thing, particularly in L.A. It's less expensive than in New York, but there's also less of a commitment to people doing plays than in New York. So it's a strange battle.
I thought I would spent my career doing Chekhov and Ibsen in regional theaters, so the fact that I started doing new plays was a whole new world I didn't expect, and that I would like to keep doing.
With the accent, it's an internal dialogue that Southerners have with themselves. We kind of carry around that shame, that feeling of being inferior to the North. I think I did lose some of the accent for a while. Because when I was a graduate student, I was terrified at having to get up in front of a roomful of smart New York kids.
I didn't graduate. I was doing theater in Michigan the summer after my junior year and just moved on to New York.
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