A Quote by Jennifer Carpenter

Well, I made an announcement to my family at 8 that I wanted to be an actor, and I focused like a laser beam on it. I never had a fallback plan. — © Jennifer Carpenter
Well, I made an announcement to my family at 8 that I wanted to be an actor, and I focused like a laser beam on it. I never had a fallback plan.
Anybody who tells you to have a fallback plan are people who had a fallback plan, didn’t follow their dreams, and don’t want you to either.
In actual fact, I wanted to be an actor, but I was a lawyer, and I was a week away from qualifying and was fired. And that's the day I made an announcement: "Hey, for seven years, you thought I was going to be a lawyer. Well, I'm not. I've just lost my job, and I'm packing my bags and moving to London tomorrow to be an actor."
I had that laser focus, identified what I wanted when I was a kid, and never let anything get in my way. If you look on paper at who I am and what I sound like, and what I look like, you wouldn't say, 'Go into broadcasting.' It's just what I wanted to do - I knew that I could do it, and I never let anyone tell me that I couldn't.
I have been, earlier in my life, a lazy writer. I'd spend three hours at the gym to avoid writing, or I'd just find other distractions - reading, doing laundry, talking on the phone, etc. But suddenly I was like a laser beam: I was relentlessly focused, sometimes to the detriment of other things.
Nearly all inventions are not recognised for their positive side either when they're made. So, for example, scientists didn't go out to design a CD machine: they designed a laser. But we got all sorts of things from a laser which we never remotely imagined, and we're still finding things for a laser to do.
Well, it made perfect sense that I originally wanted to be an actor because every Sunday, we walked into church and we acted like we were the happiest, most together family.
My family was always very supportive. Whether you're an actor or not, everybody hears the horror stories of people going to L.A. and trying to be an actor, and their dreams are crushed, and they end up working for the IRS. So they were always protective to the point that they wanted me to have a backup plan, which is understandable, but there was always something inside of me that knew: backup plan, schmackup plan.
I didn't grow up in a traditional family, and I never had a family dinner around the table, so whenever I actually had a dinner 'plan,' it meant a lot to me; it made me feel excited and safe.
I don't know where this is coming from. What's wrong with my hair? I'm like 'I just made history and people are focused on my hair?' It can be bald or short, it doesn't matter about my hair. Nothing is going to change. I'm going to wear my hair like this during beam and bar finals. You might as well just stop talking about it.
I've always wanted to be a voice actor. Well I think at first I wanted to be a singer. Then in middle school I auditioned for a musical and I only really cared because I wanted to sing in it. I had to act as well as part of the audition and that was the first time I ever really acted, and I was like 'Oh hey, this is fun, I like doing this.'
I never wanted to become an actor to be famous. I just wanted to be a good actor. It served me pretty well.
I'm old enough to never say never. I never had a grand plan with what I was going to do. There are some movies that I would like to be involved with, but I'm trying to be a working actor.
I had a basic plan for my life. The plan was - 20s: make money; 30s: have family; and 40s: run for something and do politics. When I retired, I wanted to be a teacher.
I'd say that directing is in my heart. And that's where my focus is, like a laser beam. That's what I've been studying for a long time, and I think that everything that I've done before has contributed to the development of my craft as a director.
The announcement that I was going to be an actor was made when was I was 10 years old. And that didn't go down all that well, but I had a lot of years to butter up my parents. My parents have mellowed quite a bit, but, growing up, there was a sense that the only real professions were doctor, engineer, lawyer. Those were your choices.
I took biology in high school and didn't like it at all. It was focused on memorization. ... I didn't appreciate that biology also had principles and logic ... [rather than dealing with a] messy thing called life. It just wasn't organized, and I wanted to stick with the nice pristine sciences of chemistry and physics, where everything made sense. I wish I had learned sooner that biology could be fun as well.
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