A Quote by Karla Crome

Something they taught us at drama school, and it's taken me a long time to realise it's true through practice, is that you can't put judgments on a character you're playing, especially while you're doing it.
The great writers like Chekhov know that tragedy and laughter are just a few steps from each other ... but it took me a long time as an actress to learn that. Actually Arthur Miller taught me in the Seventies. We were making a CBS TV drama of his play Playing for Time about Auschwitz but the characters were laughing. It was a big insight for me to realise that that was what's called gallows humour, in this case worse than the gallows, that humans need to laugh and make jokes in order to survive.
A couple of people I knew went to university apart from me, but all the way through I was the smartest kid in the school. That's luck, but I was proud of it. And I was also proud of doing well without trying. As you get older, and it took me a long time to realise it, that's a disgusting attitude, revolting.
My dad was a great business guy, and he always taught us that his business acumen would put his workers' kids through school, and their great artistry... would put my brothers and me through school.
I didn't have the money to put myself through drama school, so I thought - naively - that if I wrote a play and put it on at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, agents would see me and that would be my ticket to Hollywood. I wrote a musical; an acting coach saw it and put me on his course for free while I wrote for his company.
My father was an actor. Both of my older brothers are actors. My younger sister is an actress. For me, that's my job; that's my craft. But then all through school and through drama school, I was gigging and running nights and playing in bands, and I just didn't want to let that go.
Some people have this really clear memory of making that decision, and I don't. My earliest memories of being involved with drama or acting were in elementary school. My sister and I got dropped off at an after-school improvisation class, a time-killer for kids while parents were doing the groceries. I'm 6 years old, and I remember running amok and playing these games.
I spent a month in India and where I learnt an important word for me, for everything that had come before and after, and the was the word 'seva' - the work you do without wanting reward, simply for the work itself, for the spiritual, for the practice and the experience it gives you by doing that work. I began to realise it was something I was searching for all my life, that I was doing theatre not for myself but for something for a search, for a seeking for something that is behind that, to find a truth somewhere about us.
There wasn't much for me to do after school except the drama club, so when I kind of started doing drama club, it seemed to be something I could do.
It took a lot of time and practice for me to realise that there's no point trying to be something you're not.
My tutors at drama school commended and criticised my use of comedy in my acting for a long time at drama school. They said I had a tendency to somehow perform the most tragic of scenes in a slightly flippant way.
When I went to college, it was so easy. And I worked two jobs while I was in school all the way through; I put myself through school. But working and studying was easy for me because I had worked so hard in high school, studying all the time. Taking only three classes and then working was an easy life in comparison.
I just bring energy, try to put myself in a good mood, because you're not going to get through practice if you're drowsy, don't feel like doing nothing. Then it's going to be a long practice and coach is going to be all over you.
It took me a long time to realise that I need to stay true to my game.
I've been playing the same character on Supernatural for the past nine years and while that character has gone through a lot of different iterations, it's nice to step out and just do something altogether different.
If you're doing television, you get to be a character for a long time, and the cast around you becomes like family. You get attached to playing that one character, and it's hard leaving them behind.
I'm a vagabond. I have a suitcase that is ready to go at a moment's notice. The thought of being in one place for a long time, or playing one character for a long time, is terrifying for me.
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