David Soul Quotes

When you're starting out as an actor, there isn't much food around. I was lucky to have a hit pretty early on. I didn't starve too long.

When I was writing 'Withnail,' I was so busted flat that I had one lightbulb that I would carry around the house with me. I mean, really. No furniture, no money, and I was hoping to be an actor, but I could never get a job.

I went from buying my own condominium and a car for myself when I was 17 on 'The Facts of Life' to not being able to pay my rent. I was at the unemployment office all the time. I had to sell my record collection just to make ends meet. And then I started getting these voice-over jobs.

When I was focusing on theater, I would go on for months without any work and could hardly pay the rent.

I was an out-of-work actor for 10 years.

I never wanted to be one of those desperate actors, just waiting for their next gig, who might have to take something that they didn't want to do to pay the rent.

As children we had traveled only in cars and led a lavish lifestyle. After father and we parted ways, we had little money to afford even petrol; I used to travel to the Tollygunge studios in the south of the city from our Dumdum home in the north by bus. I would do any role that came my way: hero's friend, or brother, or son, just about anything.

I am, as they say, the classic starving artist.

Whether it's New York or somewhere else, the metaphor of 'Avenue Q,' which is the place you live when you can't afford to live anywhere else - and we've all been through that in our journey. As I always say, at any moment I could be back on Avenue Q if I pick the wrong show.

As an actress for most of my life, I am profoundly familiar with poverty.

I came to New York with $500 and I had to live on that, but thankfully I was taken up by photographers quickly.

I was able to support myself by acting alone about six years ago. Until then, I was just scraping by.

I do smaller films, I'm not getting big paydays. I feel like we're just kind of scraping together here.

People told me, when I was coming through the ranks, that a mark of a great actor is one who deals with the period of unemployment as well as they deal with the period of employment.

I met my wife, I had no money, I had nothing, and I started my family without really, my career was nowhere, but I had these other businesses, I had these things I was doing to be able to afford a small home.

I'm the most out-of-work actor I know. In the last two years I've basically taken meetings for a living.

I had some years of definite frustration. Auditioning and not working as much as I would have liked to, or working and being paid a pittance, and sort of scrounging by in New York and sleeping on a chair that folded out into a bed.

There have been moments where I'm like, 'I don't know how I'm going to survive and pay next month's rent.' And the next month I'm filming a movie in New York City.

I think it was 1987 - something like that - or '86, and I thought, 'When you go equity and you're gonna get paid, you'll finally be able to make a living.' But it was not to be so. I always bartended and waited tables so I ended up not doing theater for about a year because nobody would hire me.

I didn't pursue acting as a career until I got my first job. I didn't think I could make a living at it. You hear such horror stories about how hard it is to get work as an actor. It is hard, but I decided to roll with it.

Acting has always been a strong force in my life, but it was hard to change direction. I didn't make a paycheck for two years.

It's funny to think that when you get done with an acting job, you're considered unemployed. There are definitely times when those checks don't last forever. I went to college at a private school, and I racked up quite a bit of debt. I was very slow to pay them back.

As an actor, your life is constant ups and downs. My friends and I joke that when a job ends and nothing is lined up, you have nothing to do for the rest of your life. You just ride that wave.

Ask any guitar player - it's hard to feed yourself when you're picking for a living.

When I was 19 or 20 years old, I wasn't making a living wrestling. I needed a full-time income.