A Quote by Paul Giamatti
It is because my dad died suddenly that I became an actor. I thought, I'm going to make money doing this thing I enjoy.
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My story about becoming an actor is a completely non-romantic one. I became an actor because my parents were actors, and it seemed like a very... I knew I was going to act all my life, but I didn't know that I was going to be a professional actor. I thought I was just going to work as an actor every now and then.
I suddenly realized that the fellow who didn't show up was getting about fifty-times more money than I was getting. So I thought, 'this is silly,' and became an actor. I certainly never thought I'd wind up in motion pictures. That was far beyond anything I'd ever dreamed of.
I always thought I would die of cancer because my mom and my dad both died of cancer. My dad died of osteocancer, and my mom died of colon cancer.
When I was a kid, I was in love with one of the 'Charlie's Angels.' I told my dad, 'I'm going to marry somebody like Cheryl Ladd.' My dad said, 'You're not that good-looking, mijo. You're going to have to make a lot of money if that's what you want.' I went, 'Well, I want that, so I'm going to make money.'
Well, yes, as I was a rather bad actor then and I wasn't making enough money, I thought, to make enough money to not make money as an actor, I'd better do some writing.
I suddenly became aware over the last couple of years that I'm in my sixties. I never thought about it. I thought I'd better start acting my age or find roles that are going to be interesting to me in the sexagenarian repertoire, because it's not what you do in your forties or fifties.
I used to hang out in my dad's workshop on weekends. Later, when I was starting out as an actor, I became a roofer and a framer to make money. But what I really enjoyed was the finished work. I like the longevity.
There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died.
After I dropped out of college at the age of 19, I became a mortgage broker, and when I went back to school I thought about going into real estate law. I probably would have made a lot more money and died of boredom by now.
I was living in London and I thought, 'There's nothing here for me anymore.' I don't want to become this actor who's going to be doing this occasional good work in the theater and then ever diminishing bad television. I thought I'd rather do bad movies than bad television because you get more money for it.
My dad was a lovely guy. I had great parents. But he was a conservative shopkeeper, and he said, "Look, I don't know how to help you as an actor, but if you want to be an actor, give it a go for a year. Get a job. And if you don't get a job, then we're going to reevaluate and you're going to go back to school." And I thought that was a fair thing.
I wasn't that great in sports. I started doing children's theater and loved it. I thought I had a great thing going with musicals. I thought, 'I can do this. It's fun.' I wanted to go for it, and I thought I'd like to make a living doing this.
I didn't become an actor because I thought I'd make lots of money.
Money is another pressure. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that there's a certain luxury in having no money. I spent ten years in New York not having it, not worrying about it. Suddenly you have it, then you worry, where is it going? Am I doing the right thing with it?
I work because I enjoy what I'm doing, and the fact that I make money at it - big money - is a fine-and-dandy side fact.
You've got to be happy, you have to do this thing [music] for the love. It's not like you go into music because it's going to make a lot of money. It's something you do... that's the thing. You got to accept all that hard work with it, too. And enjoy it, and love it.
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