A Quote by Josh O'Connor

Yeah, I guess for years I wanted to be an artist, and when I was growing up, lots of my family were artists, so I was kind of surrounded by that world. Then acting came along, and I loved it immediately.
It's important to have a fallback and other activities that keep you interested. I started acting when I was about nine or 10 years old. My father was a midtown firefighter so I always wanted to be a firefighter, but then acting came along. I have to have a plan B.
I loved acting as a kid because I was kind of shy, so it brought me out of myself. Acting for kids is like playing house, you know? But growing up in Hollywood, it just made it seem possible. It wasn't like some idea of going to Hollywood; it was in my backyard. I lived two blocks from Grauman's Chinese Theatre growing up. It was what people did. It's an industry town. So it wasn't some far-off fantasy, it was like "Oh yeah, when you grow up, you do this because that's what people do here."
The visual world has blown up, the world of writing has blown up; there's so much text online. Anyone and everyone can express themselves. It's a lot to think about as an artist. Also, that the persona of the artist might actually be of some importance. When I came of age, it was important to be quiet and hang back and be mysterious. I knew artists who didn't even want to show up at their own openings. They never wanted to have their picture taken, didn't want to autograph a book, didn't want to answer a question. I came of age in a world where it was "Let the work speak for itself."
I have been acting for almost 20 years now. At first it changed in my focus and how much I wanted to act. When I was younger, it was so much fun, and I really wanted it, but it was not competitive. Then I became a teenager and it became kind of competitive and not as much fun. I pulled back and I got lazy about it, where I was like, "Yeah, I guess, I'll do small parts in cool movies," but I wasn't really trying to say anything.
Coming out of graduation, I didn't immediately know what direction I wanted to do so I decided to just stay as an intern until it really kind of dawned on me and I felt more compelled one way or the other. So I gave it a few years and then after two years it was really clear that deep down I missed being a full time creative artist. Ironically, I started getting clients who were all in the entertainment industry and a lot of them were in comedy!
I wanted to study film at an art school - I loved the idea of being surrounded by designers and artists. We were encouraged to be experimental.
I just feel like I'm an artist that still has set a standard for artists that come up to follow and be like...So, yeah, I guess I'm a legend somewhat, I guess in my own right, but I still got a long ways to go.
I gave up accounting. I went in for about six months writing ad copy. I was fired from that, and then another guy and I did a kind of poor man's Bob and Ray kind of syndicated radio show. Then I decided to stick it out and see what happened. I'd give it a year, a year became two years, and then two years became three years, and then along came the record album.
I always wanted to be grown up. When I was little I couldn’t wait to be a teenager and go to high school. When I got there I wanted to be done with it, wanted to get out into the world, the real one, and live in it. The thing is, that world doesn’t exist. All growing up means is that you realize no one will come along to fix things. No one will come along to save you.
It's strange, somebody asked for my autograph the other day. Because I finished school and I'm not really doing anything at the moment, I was just kind of aimlessly wandering around London and these two guys who were about 30 came up and asked for my autograph. I was really quite proud at the time, and they wanted to take photos and stuff. And then they were sort of wandering around and I was kind of wandering around and I bumped into them about three times, and every single time their respect for me kept growing and growing and growing.
When I was growing up, I thought I was getting bored of acting, so I left that. Then after a few years, I started missing it. I left my studies mid-way, and I used to give lots of auditions.
I guess I wanted to emulate the artists that my parents were listening to when I was growing up. I've always had this affinity for folk music, and music in general, for as long as I can remember. So as soon as I could start playing shows, I did. And my parents were really supportive of me the entire time.
But I'm a daughter of the American revolution, my grandpa fought in World War II, I have lots of family members who were in the military, and it really just was part of growing up for me.
I have a general feeling that writers and artists who are in this peculiar situation, of being a persecuted artist, all anyone ever asks about is the persecution. It may well be that's the last thing in the world they want to talk about. There were many years in which every journalist in the world wanted to talk to me, but nobody wanted to talk to me about my work. That felt deeply frustrating because I felt there was an attempt to stifle me as an artist. The best revenge I could have was to write.
I always loved science and math growing up. I was born in Iran; I grew up there and then came to the United States when I was about 16 years old. And I thought that this was my opportunity to get involved with something really cool and great.
A lot of other people wanted a free production UNIX with lots of bells and whistles and wanted to convert MINIX into that. I was dragged along in the maelstrom for a while, but when Linux came along, I was actually relieved that I could go back to professoring.
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