Professional Doubt Quotes

I felt like my career was out of my hands.

I'm still awaiting the idea of drawing comics for a living being a reality. I feel like I've been dodging work for 20 years, and at some point, I'll have to get a real job.

If you had asked me, did I have everything nailed down and wired about what I wanted to do, and was I following some real plan? No. In fact, by the time I was in my mid-20s or even late-20s, and I was still in the law firm, I really was starting to get a little nervous that I didn't know what I was going to do.

I knew I could hang on in the NBA, but I wasn't going to play.

One of the hazards of making a major discovery early in your career is the burden of expectation, not helped in my case by becoming a wife and mother soon afterwards. I'm sure some people think it was a flash in the pan.

I was going to be a lawyer, and I had studied hard, but then it suddenly occurred to me in a very deep, profound way that I didn't want to keep practicing law for the rest of my life.

In my professional work with the Agency, by the late '70s, I had come to question the value of a great deal of what we were doing, in terms of the intelligence agency's impact on American policy.

Because I've done so many different roles, I don't want to repeat myself. It's getting harder and harder to find something interesting. You never know - I might never make a film again.

Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice”?

And I may often question choices I make as a producer. But I've never questioned the choices I make as a director.

The decision-making process was very difficult: is this how I want my career to start, with playing Jodie Dallas on this show?

I think I didn't know whether I wanted to keep acting deep into my career. I kept trying to see if I would be able to do it well enough to make that part of my destiny or part of what I was supposed to do.

I couldn't see myself filling some definite niche in what is called a career. This was all misty.

Until you get your reputation made, you have to work twice as hard... there is always a doubt in your superior's mind as to whether you will put family before your job.

I feel as if you're saying that DJ is not a real job.

Since 80% of my career has been devoted to successful commercial cinema, I have always been told that I do not know how to act.

I'm my dad's kid, and I'm still, right or wrong, fighting that uphill battle, and I'm not saying that makes sense. I mean my dad didn't hire me at Fox... but it certainly gave me my start, and I think I'm always kind of fighting that.

Cara [Delevingne] I wanted to be sure that she would be involved. 'Cause she didn't do a lot of films before I met her, so I didn't know if she was serious and so I push her a bit.

I think it started to feel like home when I stopped maintaining any pretense that I was ever going to be in the movie business. I went there like many writers - I had a screenplay deal and I would go to these meetings and it was the typical thing. And I hated it. I was not interested in writing screenplays, actually. But I kept feeling like that was what I was supposed to do. It was just this horrible cognitive dissonance.

I went through a low phase for two years when I had a string of flops. At that time, I even felt that I was in the wrong profession and that I should leave acting. But thankfully, I utilised that time to introspect and went on a self-exploration trip. I did theatre in between, and it helped grow the fire within me.

I'm almost 40, so it's an awkward time in my career. You kind of hope it comes through and, if not, I'll be a waiter. Awesome.

I don't want to be a film-maker. I think painting is far more exciting and profound. It's always at the back of my mind - let's give up this silly business of film-making and concentrate on something more satisfying and worthwhile.

I was going to be a doctor, but who makes it as a doctor anymore?

I always loved acting - though what I did in my teens was probably more eclat than elan. But I wasn't sure about doing it professionally.

You have no idea how many doors closed on me and how many adults were either initially reluctant to take a chance working with me or who outright laughed at me behind my back.