Jasmin Bhasin Quotes

I told my parents I wanted to be an actor, and they were getting ready for a life of unemployment, so they're just happy I'm in work!

When I graduated from high school, my mom and dad were saying I needed to go to college, but I said I wanted to pursue my dream of acting. At the end of my high school career, they quit their jobs, and we moved out to California on a leap of faith.

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.

When I was doing 'Neighbours,' I was aiming to go to university, then go to med school, but I realised I could make a better living from acting.

I was very successful, and I graduated with honors. And then I called my dad, who still lives in London, and I said, 'Dad, thanks for college, but I'm going to go act now.' It didn't go over very well.

I quit my job when I was earning Rs 1.5 lakh per month, when my position was at a peak, I had a H1-B and could have gone offshore and lived comfortably. But I knew I would achieve something if I followed my heart, and gave that all up.

At the end of drama school, I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting is: a small business.

Luckily my parents were not against my ambition, they've always been very supportive. But they were adamant that I went to university first.

I did 'Degrassi' for five years in Toronto, and I made the decision to quit the show to go to theatre school, which a lot of people thought I was really crazy to do, but it was one of those major decisions in my life that I haven't regretted - hopefully I won't! I really wanted to go to school.

If I was working nine to five, acting would be my hobby... I always feel like maybe I should do an Open University degree. But I'm never going to.

The impetus behind going to graduate school was a year after graduating from college spent in Dallas working at the dog food factory and Bank America and not having met success in my chosen field, which at that point was being an actress.

My dad, in particular, was adamant that I should finish my education. He encouraged me to go to Oxford, for instance, and I rather doubt I'd have gone if he hadn't. I would have gone straight back to L.A. and tried to start my career.

I was lucky, and once I moved to L.A., I didn't have to get another job besides acting. But I wouldn't trade my previous jobs for anything.

I didn't have the safety net that a lot of young actresses have. A lot of young girls have their families around to support them and help choose wisely.

When I started out I was a failed actor.

I'm very content to have great management and a great label. But for me, success started when my managers came to me and told me, 'Go ahead and quit your job.' I told them, 'As long as I don't have to wash dishes anymore, I'm good.'

I was a waiter before 'The Office,' so to me, this was a winning lottery ticket. Everything about my life has changed.

It was just expected that I would go to college. Both my parents are teachers and they tolerated acting, but I was going to go to a school of quality or bust. Which made my downshifting back to acting afterward a little difficult.

We're not an acting family, but my parents have always encouraged me.

Most of those people who saw themselves as literary types at university became bank managers.

I went to college, grad school. I got an M.B.A., had a really cush corporate job. But I was just bored stiff. I didn't fit that mold.

I wasn't a kid trying to become famous. I wasn't a part of any Disney Channel wheelhouse. I was basically a black kid whose parents put him into the business so he could go to college.

I like to work. I mean, part of it for me is that I was a struggling actor, could barely pay my rent, until I was almost 40.

I did school plays, and then, at the age of 18, I applied to drama school in London, and I got in. I've been very lucky that no one so far has stopped me from being able to live my dream - the industry or my parents.

I didn't have an acting job when I moved to L.A. I was just naive enough to think that moving to L.A. was the next step after college. My parents were really supportive.