A Quote by Skylar Astin

I first got into acting when I was 14, coming back from a junior high school basketball game. My mom picked me up and she had been mentioning, prior to that, this community production of 'Godspell', a couple towns over. I was reluctant, at first, and she bribed me with some great dinner that was in that town, neighboring the theater.
For me, coming up, the first I had ever heard of basketball? It was from my mom. She was a really good player back in her day, and even played college ball at Kentucky State. And then she went on to become a coach and an AD after that - so she always stayed real close to the game, and kept it a part of her life.
I discovered that I wanted to be an actor back when I did my first play in junior high. I've been doing theater in junior high and high school, and I just kept feeding the fire, kept wanting to pursue acting full-on.
I was in my first play when I was 6. My older sister was in a high-school production of 'The King and I.' They needed children for a scene, so she brought me in. I had a costume and a couple of serious lines that got a laugh. I loved the feeling.
I have a very high love for the game. My mom would always drop me off at the YMCA downtown in Flint, and I'd stay there all day. If she couldn't take me, I'd take the bus there and be there until she'd pick me up when she got off work. I've always had the love for basketball.
My mom wasn't a fan of public school systems. She was scared of letting me go. So, she home-schooled my siblings and I, and she was desperately trying to find something for me to do for an extracurricular. She was trying to socialize me, so she put me in community theater, and I was instantly taken by it.
I lived in South Africa until I was 11 when we first immigrated. My mom had sent me back there when I was 14 for summer vacation. I wasn't doing very well in school, my grades were slipping. I called my mom one day and told her that I wasn't coming back. I ended up staying there until I was 17 before coming back to North America.
I grew up playing in the outfield and junior year of high school I went over to first base and got some tidbits from my dad, but it kind of came naturally to me.
The drama teacher that I had in high school, back in Texas, was the only teacher who didn't kick me out of his class. He turned me on to 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.' I had picked up Dylan with 'Bringing It All Back Home,' and he turned me on to the first couple of albums, which I hadn't heard.
I was home-schooled. My mom wasn't a fan of public school systems. She was scared of letting me go. So, she home-schooled my siblings and I, and she was desperately trying to find something for me to do, for an extracurricular. She was trying to socialize me, so she put me in community theater and I was instantly taken by it.
My mother did an incredible job - one, of just being a great mom, but two, of instilling a tremendous amount of empathy into me as a young man, as a young person. My mom was kind of this collector of people; throughout my childhood, it didn't matter who you were. She was a high school counselor and then a junior high counselor, and she didn't just counsel students, she counseled other teachers and administrators and coaches.
My mom got pregnant when she was 15. She dropped out of high school. She died in her forties, but before she died, she went back and finished high school.
Tanushree taught me how to do make-up when I didn't even know how to hold a brush, She encouraged me to go to acting school when I was not confident about my personality and acting. She even got my pictures done by the best photographers in town. She motivated me to do my best.
The worst is, a friend will invite me over, and she'll say, 'Hey, you've been working so hard. I'll make you dinner. It'll be great.' I'm like, 'That's so sweet! Thank you!' And I'll come over, and she's got hardwood samples laid out! She's using me!
My mom graduated from the University of Michigan, which is a great school. Then she got her Master's from NYU. She wanted to be an actress, so when she graduated, she had a dream, and she started following it. She moved to New York and took acting classes with people like Denzel Washington.
I was fortunate that when I was first starting out in New Orleans, I had a remarkable high-school teacher. And she was a great, great influence in my life, and I think she gave me the courage and the confidence to go forward into the real world. She instilled in me that my dreams were important and that what I was passionate about was most important.
My mom saw me do my first pull-up my freshman year, and she's emotional, and she started crying. She walked out, and I thought, 'You've got to let her be sometimes.' She does that.
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