Professional Flexibility Quotes

I'm not so in a rush to direct just anything because I'm lucky that I can make a living so far as an actor and not have to worry about that as a director. And so I can be a little more choosy in things I direct.

I've had to gain weight for roles and ugly myself up for roles. So yeah, I'm game. I'm game for that kind of thing. I'm certainly not too vain in that respect. If it's a great role, I'm willing to do whatever it is that it takes.

If my career path takes me elsewhere, that's great. But comedy is my forte.

Don't let a lack of big company names on your resume get you down, but also, don't let it feed a Silicon Valley ego. Oftentimes, the best candidates come from startups or smaller companies. It shows they are open to risk and can keep up with the long hours and occasional harsh demands.

I tried to play anything people would hire me to play, because I was a musician.

I've always tried to fit what I do professionally into my family, rather than the other way around.

I love working with a lot of different films and a lot of different people.

When you come to the end of a TV project, it's good to be able - and I'm kind of lucky - that I can just go into a different medium, make another album, or do whatever.

I had a fear of becoming anything, a fear of becoming a specialist. I might have become a doctor, but if you become a doctor, that's your specialty in life and you are defined by it. One of the attractions of being a writer is that you're never a specialist. Your field is entirely open; your field is the entire human condition.

I stay out of typecasting ruts.

The best thing about being a statistician is that you get to play in everyone's backyard.

Hopefully, I can play both sides of the fence. That's probably what winning the Oscar gives me, the chance to do something with a studio and do other things that I really want to do.

I've been able to do pretty well. I don't work as many consecutive nights as I used to, but I'm still working over 100 nights a year, so that's good for me.

I'm the Chairman Emeritus, and according to my contract I am supposed to devote 10% of my time to working for Marvel... and the rest of my time, I can do anything that I wish.

On a career level, I always advise people to look ahead and be open to changes in direction. That job that seems so good now can easily turn into a nightmare if you do not see the possible corners it can land you in.

I'm fascinated by people who have to reinvent themselves. I did it a few times - I was going to be a physicist before I was passionate about philosophy - and I realized that one more change, and I'm going to start looking like a dilettante.

Attaching yourself to success and failure too much is not healthy and good for you. It is better to focus your energy in reinventing yourself as an actor with every film.

I think when I got into broadcasting I told myself, 'I don't ever want to be pigeonholed as one thing.'

I never wanted to really make a career out of doing Christian music exclusively, but I love it to my core. I love music. I love what I'm doing now.

My career was quite unusual, so my main advice to someone interested in a career similar to my own is to remain open to change and new opportunities. I like to tell students that the jobs I took after my Ph.D. were not in existence only a few years before.

I'd been working with Chuck Lorre since the dawn of time, starting with 'Dharma and Greg,' so when I get a call about a really cool opportunity to work with him, I say yes, even before I know what it is.

I had just gotten Heroes, and I had just found out that I was going to be doing [Star] Trek, and I thought it was probably a good idea for me to create an infrastructure that would allow me to do my own work and put my stuff into the world.

I mean, I'm an actor. I do what comes along.

I am African-American, and I am a proud African-American. I just don't like to put myself in a box and say, 'I'm an African-American actress.' I am an American actress, and I can do any kind of role.

Everyone in show business makes these sweeping, "I'll never work with so-and-so again," because that's the way you feel at the moment. It's a business where there really is no point in ever saying never. There are people I've sworn that I would never go near again, and then you see an interesting role that would put you opposite that person and you think, "Well, we'll work together, maybe they were having a bad year."