Wendy Whelan Quotes

I was a professional dancer before I was an actor.

Seeing 'Revelations' made me want to be a professional dancer.

Dancing is a tough career, but I'm glad I spent it at the Royal Ballet.

What's interesting was with all the shows I did on Broadway, I was either the dance captain or the assistant choreographer - I sort of worked my way up to that kind of thing - and I always was interested in more than just the dancers and the numbers. I would always sneak into the room and watch the scene work.

I had danced with Janet Jackson and P. Diddy so I had done a bunch of hip hop. Really and truly my roots are in modern and ballet but, professionally, that's not really out there any more, unfortunately, so these artists aren't really having a lot of ballet dancers behind them so I had to learn hip hop really quick.

I have felt for a long time that I want to return back to being a singer-songwriter for a period of time. I will go back to Broadway. But I want to make the right choices about why to go back and when I am ready to go back.

In my heart, my first desire was to be a dancer. I always wanted to dance and I danced from the time I was 7 till I was well into my 30s.

I became disillusioned with dance when I was 16 and started focusing on acting.

I was in 'Rent,' for God's sake. The closest we came to stunts was dancing on a table.

There probably aren't a lot of actors my age who tap dance.

I wanted to be a professional dancer for a period of time, and I did a lot of dancing and choreography and got paid for it.

And I just thought, this is what I want to be. And I knew that dancing would be my chosen profession.

As far back as I can remember, I wanted to dance, sing and perform.

I'd studied dance in Chicago every summer end taught it all winter, and I was well-rounded. I wasn't worried about getting a job on Broadway. In fact, I got one the first week.

A lot of professional dancers become professional when they turn 15 or 16 years old, when they're still children. So you've trained every single waking moment up until that point for a career that could maybe only last 10 years, maybe longer if your body holds up, if your injuries are kept at bay.

I studied dancing for 13 years. And loved to dance. Always wanted to dance with Fred Astaire.

I frequently go to the ballet, but I don't miss it in the sense that I wish I were still dancing.

I love musicals more than anything.

While dancing for me was fun, becoming a choreographer was not something I wanted to do.

I grew up always wanting to be a dancer, and when I went to New York, I fell in love with the idea of performing in all ways. I saw myself traveling with a company or making my own work and being a little weird. I wasn't thinking about the business side of anything; I just knew that I loved dancing.

I think acting is a work of imagination.

In musicals, everyone is screaming.

In the first 20 years of my acting life, I did not do any acting. All I did was to wear a jersey, dance, lip-sync to songs, and run after girls over mountains and in the snow.

When I announced my retirement, that was actually when I was trying to come back and I realized, it just wasn't viable. It passed me by. My shoulder is done. I brush my teeth with my left hand now. That's just the way it goes. I can't shoot a basketball, I can't throw any kind of ball. I was right handed.

My job as an actor is to live the role that I do.