Pilot Season Quotes

I wasn't really interested in doing anything except going from pilot season to pilot season and sowing my oats in the months between and telling my agency to stop sending me movie scripts, because they'd pile up in my house and make me feel guilty because I had to read them.

Pilot season can be maddening. You're basically putting yourself and your talent out there to be scrutinized several times a day for months by network executives who have probably never acted in anything since their junior high school production of 'The Wiz.'

I had been reading a lot of pilots. It was pilot season and I had decided, in my mind, that I wanted to do another show, but the bar had already been set so high, having working on Mad Men and Community, that I was really particular. I was looking for something really specific, but I didn't even know exactly what that was. When I read 'Glow', it just checked every box.

Pilot season after pilot season, I read the same part: the wife who rolls her eyes at her somewhat immature husband that she still loves. Literally.

I'm on a never-ending quest to get back on a TV series, and I want to get on 'The Walking Dead.'

I worked in television; I'm the Failed Pilot Queen, I've done so many television shows, pilots, theater ... when you do it for so long, I'm telling you, you get to the point where it becomes varied because you take what's available for a number of reasons. It's just an occupational hazard.

When I first did a U.S. pilot season, there were very few British actors schlepping around town trying to get into television. That was 1999.

The first audition I went out on was because my father was on an audition for a TV show called the 'Gilmore Girls,' and that kind of snowballed a lot of stuff in my life.

I was just doing bits and pieces of acting in the U.K. I'd been in the film 'Breaking and Entering' - Anthony Minghella gave me my start and I miss him dearly. Then I made the trip out to L.A., during one of their pilot seasons, which was when they were developing 'Gossip Girl,' and I auditioned, and things came together.

I am a Broadway theatre guy... so it was kind of my goal this year to come out to LA for pilot season and expand my horizons

After the success of 'Empire' and 'How to Get Away with Murder' and 'Scandal' and 'Power' and 'Black-ish', which all had characters that were genuine, authentic, and had the language of real people, I found myself coming into pilot season and every network just wanted to have their version of one of those shows.

I was going to move to New York after college and had no interest in pilot season. I'd seen what happened on TV shows because of my dad, and I didn't want to open myself up to that. But 'Pretty Little Liars' had a very early audition, and my agents encouraged me to go even though I didn't think it would be my thing.

Pilot season tends to be grueling, because you can be thrown all of these auditions at once - last-minute, always - and you're going on three a day, especially back in the day.

Like, to do a pilot, you don't know what's going to happen with it.

Normally we go in, we do a series and then that's it, we're axed!

In between shooting for 'Awake,' I was attempting to have my own pilot season. The audition for 'Anger Management' actually came during a week that I was already testing for a couple other shows and we weren't really letting any other shows into the mix.

I had five years in the business in Canada, and then I came down to the States in February of 2010. I had a good pilot season. I started getting guest star work. I started to get bigger stuff.

When 'Hung' got canceled, I was available for pilot season, and 'Arrow' was the first thing I auditioned for. It wasn't the first script that came to me, but it was my first audition.

During the first season of 'Human Giant,' I remember the people at MTV were all over us. They hadn't really done a live-action short-film comedy show, so they didn't know what it was going to be, and they were worried. But after that, they let us do whatever we wanted.

I first came to LA auditioning during pilot season. I didn't really know anyone. The only people I'd meet were the girls I was up against at auditions. It wasn't the friendliest bunch.

As an actor, and as you get to a certain level... and it's pilot season and you read the trades, you could have a nervous breakdown. 'So-and-so's signed for a pilot. Why aren't I?'

It's rare to get a part in a show that's greenlit, let alone two shows that have been greenlit.

I can't tell you how good it is to go from 'Homeland' to be lucky enough to find 'The Blacklist' at the right time. It literally came at the very end of pilot season when I thought there was nothing left.

There is a 90% failure rate for most shows. It's difficult for any show to write for the next season.

I've pitched many things that have not gone, but every year, I'm in that pilot game like a lot of other writers in Hollywood.