A Quote by Italia Ricci

I was on my way to law school when a friend of mine at an extras agency said, 'Do you want to come to this movie set and get paid $100 bucks a day to pretend you're at a party?' And I was like, 'Yeah, summer holiday, let's do it.' So I went, and on lunch, the writer asked me to audition for a role, and I got it.
I grew up doing theater when I was very young - always enjoyed it. Studied it in college, got my degree in it, and never really had the guts to do it professionally. But one summer, a friend of mine was with an extras agency and asked me if I wanted to be an extra with him in a movie, and I was, like, "Sure." At lunch, the writer came up to me and asked me to audition for a role. I got it, and it sort of snowballed from there.
Two days before I got the audition for 'Extras,' I was offered a theatre role, and I asked my husband, Terry, whether I should take it or not. He said, 'No, wait and see what else comes in.' Lo and behold, along came 'Extras.' Now that was lucky!
I went in for an audition [for As Good As It Gets], but the audition was with James L. Brooks. I was the first girl in that morning, and there was a whole waiting room of girls waiting to read for it. So I did my audition, and he asked me to step outside. So I stepped outside, and when he asked me to come back in, he looked at me, and he said, "Well, I'm very excited to work with you on set." And I was, like, "What?" I thought it was a Hollywood blow-off.
I did the plays in middle school. I was cast as a gate in my fourth grade play, and every year I got a bigger role. Then, in 7th grade, I played Smike in 'Nicholas Nickleby,' and the casting director saw me and asked me to audition for a movie. That movie led to me getting 'Moonrise Kingdom.'
I wanted to act when I was young. When I was 12, I asked the head of English at my school, 'Can I audition?' and he said, 'What would we want you for?' And I remember going, 'Oh yeah. Why would they want me?'
Quentin [Tarantino] called me and said: "Yeah, you've got to be in my movie. You've got to be in Death Proof." But he made me audition. I was like: "Dude, I don't even want to do this..." So I left the casting of Hostel: Part II to drive to Venice, where Quentin was holding his casting, and the person ahead of me was Derek Richardson from Hostel 1 and he was like: "Dude, what are you doing here?" I said: "Don't ask!"
I remember having lunch with a friend who worked at the White House. I'd just graduated from law school but kept telling my friend what they needed to do and weren't doing right about the Iran-Contra affair. The next day, I got a call from the White House, offering me a job.
I went to acting school with Mario Van Peebles. For a little while, he was at the same school. So he asked me if I wanted to do [ New Jack City]. He said, "There's not really a role. We'll figure something out. But would you like to?" And I was like, "Sure." 'Cause he said it was Chris Rock and Ice T's first movie.
I was getting keys for my apartment, and I asked if I could get doubles, because I'm forgetful, and the woman there said, "Yeah, but it costs $5." I was like, "Oh, okay." But then she said, "Actually, you know what, I'm just going to give it to you for free. You were in that movie Mrs. Doubtfire, and that movie really helped me out in a time when I needed it. It got me through something, and it made me laugh when I needed to laugh.
A couple of years ago, I went to see a production of Wicked in San Francisco with a friend of mine, one that Patty Duke was in, and he said, "Do you want to meet her?" And I said, "Yeah!" And I went backstage, and she walked out of her dressing room, looked at me, and said, "I know you." And I went, "Well, uh, yeah, I was in My Sweet Charlie." And she said, "Yeah! You were the guy in the car on the road!" And I was. It was amazing.
I've hit a point where my big luxury is getting to work on the things I want to work on. That's my hobby. It's being able to do a movie like 'Chef,' where you don't get paid, where you get paid scale, but you get to do exactly the movie you want to do. To me, that's worth more to me than whatever money I would have gotten paid.
I didn't tell anybody [had got a role at As Good As It Gets], because I was just going, "Well, that was the strangest audition..." And I just thought, "There's no way he gave me the job on the spot when there was a room full of other girls waiting to audition for it." But then I didn't hear anything for a couple of days, so I finally called my agents, and they're, like, "Oh, yeah, congratulations! We know Jim [L.Brooks] told you in the room that you got it."
One day, I was auditioning for some other thing and my friend was auditioning for 'Laila Majnu.' She asked me to come with her so that we could leave together. While I was waiting, the guy who was taking the audition said, 'Why don't you give it a try.'
I got the pilot for 'Scrubs' sent to me, and in the margin for Dr. Cox, it said 'a John McGinley type.' So when I went in to audition, I said to Billy Lawrence, who's a dear friend of mine, I said, 'Well, I'm John McGinley.'
I did all my guitar playing at my house. And then finally, I was throwing hay and stuff working in Stockton and somebody offered - somehow they had heard me singing at the house and said: Hey, I'll hire you for our fraternity party or sorority party. And I said: Well, are they going to pay me? And he said: Yeah, we'll pay you 50 bucks.
The transition from sports into acting was something I got blindsided by. I had a full scholarship to law school. I had a different life planned. I started a business, and I was all ready to go. I suddenly got in a local movie, just to say to my kids one day, "Yeah, your old man was in a movie," and I caught the bug.
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