Growing up in Seattle, I had the opportunity to take classes since I was 7 years old. I did theatre. I auditioned for film, television, commercials, and built up not just a resume but also some confidence. I learned how to master my craft before arriving in Los Angeles.
I think the best thing I ever did was, years before I got the 'Late Night' show, when I first got out to Los Angeles to be a television writer, the first thing I did was I signed up to take improvisational classes... And I studied that for years, and I really loved it.
My mom brought me up on old Hollywood. I had been living in Los Angeles. Respecting old movies and growing up with people that were icons that I got to speak to.
My mom brought me up on old Hollywood. I had been living in Los Angeles, respecting old movies and growing up with people that were icons that I got to speak to.
Since I have spent many years of my life living in Los Angeles, and since I'm also in the music business, I know that much more is talked about in Los Angeles than ever really occurs.
I was making commercials. That's how I learned the craft. That was the marketing part of it: directing commercial for TV. It wasn't the most common thing to become a filmmaker in Greece. I started by saying I was interested in marketing and have a proper job in advertising and commercials. Basically, I studied film to learn how to do marketing, and commercials. As I studied film I learned I'd be interested in making films instead of commercials.
Especially growing up in Los Angeles, there's just a very different mind-set than my own. There's no 'Romeo and Juliet' in Los Angeles. There's 'Laguna Beach.'
Growing up in Los Angeles, I was incredibly fortunate to be taken to theatre by my parents to see everything at the Music Center, at UCLA and beyond. I just adored it.
I had agents in Australia; I just never had any auditions. And if you can't audition, then you can't work. I studied there. I did classes there. I learned how to act. Growing up there, I discovered my love for acting, but I just wasn't getting the opportunities to work professionally.
I've actually done three pilots for Disney. I met with the network when I was 16 years old and had just started acting. I would fly to Los Angeles to film pilots, then fly back to Dallas, where I grew up.
Local television shows do not, in general, supply make-up artists. The exception to this is Los Angeles, an unusually generous city in this regard, since they also provide this service for radio appearances.
I love Los Angeles. I love Seattle, too, which is where we have our home. But the notion of spending a lot of time in Los Angeles has been exciting to me for years. The community down there is great.
I don't live in Los Angeles. I work in Los Angeles, and even that - I audition in Los Angeles; I very rarely film in Los Angeles. I don't hang out with producers on my off-hours, so I don't even know what that world is like.
I would drive down in my Volkswagen Jetta to Los Angeles and just audition, audition, audition, audition, and hopefully get something. I did that for two years, and the third year I came down, I auditioned for 'How I Met Your Mother.'
I was in a bookstore one afternoon, and I stumbled across this book called 'A Guide to Film Schools.' I always loved movies growing up and had never even conceived that it was something you could do for a living. Realizing most of them were in Los Angeles and knowing that was warm, I ended up applying.
Initially I started in theatre as a Shakespearean actress before film and television. I've always been an artistic child growing up and I knew I wanted to act for as long as I can remember.
I went to college and did theatre. After that, I spent about three years in Seattle doing French theater and community theater and sorting it all out. Then I applied to graduate school and got accepted, so I started pursuing my master's in theatre at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.