A Quote by Christine Lahti

When I was first starting out, if you were acting on television, it was a real stigma. — © Christine Lahti
When I was first starting out, if you were acting on television, it was a real stigma.
The closest I came to doing anything that I wanted to do was to try and check and see what industries were just starting out. There was plastics and television, and I figured television had to be more fun than plastics.
I feel like we were so naive when we first got started, we didn't even know we'd be around for two years, given how tough it was when we were first starting out.
I didn't have a lot of men to ask questions of when I was starting out. There were two female directors people suggested I talk to when I was starting out, and they were Nancy Meyers and Kathryn Bigelow.
Once in a while a good opportunity would come along, like the first 'Playhouse 90 ever to air - working in television afforded me my best opportunities. The (film) industry was going through such turmoil at the time - studios didn't know where to go anymore, they were falling apart, television was there. They didn't know what kind of films people wanted. The European films were making a huge impact because those films wanted real people in real situations.
A lot of people will tell you the first step to starting something new is to have an idea. But to me the first step starts long before that. The first step to acting like an entrepreneur is to look not at the writing on the wall but at the spaces between the writing. It's in the gap between what's being said and what's not being said that entrepreneurs thrive. The way to get going is to find the courage to take your dream out of your head and put it to the test in the real world. Don't just think it; act on it.
Reality television is to television what marble and gold are to real estate. The point is to dispense with the idea of taste. It's all id. The more unrestrained the better. We all know that 'reality' in reality television is not real. That anybody who would participate in reality television is a fake. But pretending otherwise makes them real.
Models have a stigma that they can't act. You're also, to be quite blunt, you're tall and not a lot of actors are tall and when you are starting out you're obviously not the first one cast, so you're trying to fit into a mold. You're quite often not cast as the quirky best friend, but you don't have the experience to be cast as the lead. So it can be really tricky. One of the biggest things is just to get your people, so to speak, your agents and managers to take you seriously. That's one of the issues I had when I came out to LA.
When you saw Jon Lovitz or Dana Carvey or Phil Hartman doing something, they were acting. It was real acting. Like, they were acting like that person. They weren't like - it wasn't even like they were really trying to go for a laugh, especially in Phil Hartman's case.
I went to college and got my degree in acting, but because it was all theater, I really consider my first couple years on 'Mad Men' as amazing training for working in television and for acting on-camera.
When I was first starting out in the industry in the early '90s, gay love stories were relegated to limited-release films that were hidden deep in the back of Blockbuster video stores.
When I first started making films 30 years ago, people would comment that I was a woman. But strangely, when I was in television, no one ever mentioned that I was a woman. Maybe it was because television and film were different. There were more women working in television than men. There was no split in terms of work - everyone was considered equal
My first manager, Suzanne DeWalt, saw a play I was in. She was invited by the director Joan Scheckel, who was my first real acting teacher. Joan was also good friends with my friend Susie Landau Finch, who had first encouraged me to consider acting, so that's how I began studying.
I think there were some dubious feelings about it, that the first 'Scarface' would not be surpassed by the second 'Scarface.' We were wrong; it surpassed it. The acting talent, the cinematography - we were propelled into a real class action film. Long after I kick the bucket, it'll be played.
I love acting. Acting's always been my first love. I grew up watching multi-camera television shows... And I thought I would absolutely be in for that.
I didn't come to L.A. thinking, okay, I'm going to be an actor, so my progression was just kind of organic, starting in print modeling, which I was far less successful in, then acting in television commercials.
When I first started acting, I had all these ideals about the kinds of roles I wanted to play, but the reality is that when you do television - and I do a lot of television - you get cast for qualities that you have as a person. So I look for qualities that I like to portray.
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