A Quote by Joan Van Ark

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.
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 always looked up to great actors and great films. A lot of my family would be like, 'Come on, you should get into these plays that are going on.' I'm like, 'Nah, nah, music's my thing.' I just fell into it. I moved to Atlanta, got with an agency out there, started doing little voiceover commercials, and it started getting kind of fun.
When I lived in New York, there wasn't as much TV or film around. I got asked to do a couple of indie films, just based on me being from The Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle. I did a couple of indie movies from Japan and one from Canada, and I thought it was an exciting, fun thing to do. I had a great time doing it, it was just that, in New York, there really wasn't as much. My studio in New York closed, so I moved out to L.A. and just started looking into composing as another thing to do, as a musician. I like it a lot. It's fun and it's a different way of thinking about music.
I grew up kind of in the country, in western Georgia. And then I moved a lot closer to Atlanta, and I started doing plays, and when I started doing film, I think I really started to love it.
I just think I started off like many composers, just in different fields of music I was doing. I started doing a lot of commercials and jingles, and then that led to doing TV and then films and games and TV.
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 always thought Broadway's the goal, and then I moved out to L.A. with 'Wicked' and started doing guest-star spots and little recurring things, and I was like, 'Well, this is pretty great; I'm kind of digging this.'
When I moved to New York I started to do a lot of TV commercials. It just kind of naturally evolved from still photography to commercials.
I was a dancer when I got discovered, and I started working immediately. I started being in commercials and doing guest star roles. My first big thing, which happened maybe six months after being discovered, was 'Bring It On: All or Nothing.'
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.
A lot of student directors used to pick other students to be in their graduate films, so. I ended up doing a couple of them just for fun. Eventually, I got an agent through a friend and I did some commercials; then I got Knots Landing.
When I was starting out, doing guest spots on TV, and even commercials, I would go in with a whole crazy wardrobe and some terrible accent. Obviously, I was doing too much. If you bring too much flavor to it, it's absurd. There's something to just being spontaneous.
I started doing plays in New York while I was at Fordham, but I did graduate by the skin of my teeth.
I love doing voiceover work. I started doing voiceover work when I had just dropped out of school, and the first few professional jobs I got were plays, but then I started making money doing voiceovers.
I love doing voiceover work. I started doing voiceover work when I had just dropped out of school, and the first few professional jobs I got were plays, but then I started making money doing voice-overs.
I started when I was three years old, doing commercials and Modeling in New York, I liked it so much that I kept doing it.
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