Professional Struggles Quotes

For me, as a woman in one of the less diverse fields - electrical engineering, which is what I studied in college - it was hard to persist and really build a career. Some of the things I experienced were really scary, and they weren't experiences that I wanted for my daughter.

I think it's an uphill battle in every field. You hear late-night comedy is hard on women. And then you hear investment banking is hard on women. And tech is hard on women. And then you start digging, and you learn philosophy departments are hard on women!

The life of an actor is very hard irrespective of the continent you are in. It is doubly hard when you are only eligible for minority roles.

Being beautiful is not so fun when you're in a business with all men.

It's just the story of my career, really. I will have good weeks; I'll have bad weeks. It's just a roller-coaster.

And I knew that, being an actor, you have to take the rough with the smooth and the highs with the lows. That's how it is.

I still dream about 'New York' mag. It's kind of weird. I dream I'm part-time, and they can't find a full-time job for me. It's usually that I can't find a lead, and I call all my great sources and say, 'Can you help me out?'

Every actor or director has their ups and downs.

It's hard not to let criticism make you feel bad about yourself - I do continue to struggle with that as an older woman in the workplace.

My CIA colleagues were smart, dedicated, funny, and creative. Yes, there was sometimes stifling bureaucracy, boredom, colleagues who never should have been there, and later, deeply disturbing stories of the CIA's involvement in torture. Still, I got to do work I thought was incredibly important and, many times, had fun doing it.

Early on, I had five jobs in a row where I was either fired or canceled.

There was a period of time when I couldn't seem to get anything. I was on the series 'Daniel Boone,' and then, when that ended, I was still under 18, so I was too young to be in the older category and too old to be a child. So there was a few years there that were dry.

The life of a model isn't easy. But I try to keep a good head on my shoulders by staying close to my family and old friends. They're my support system.

I have been shaped by the experiences of the people who are closest to me, by the things I've learned from [my wife] Martha, by my hopes and my concerns for my children, Philip and Laura, by the experiences of members of my family, who are getting older, by my sister's experiences as a trial lawyer in a profession that has traditionally been dominated by men.

I love acting. When I'm acting I feel like I'm on vacation. I'm just having a wonderful time. The nightmare is just getting the work to happen.

I find that as a female boss in the music industry, it's difficult to actually be treated as if you actually are the boss and to have people act on your instructions and take you seriously. Like you call up people who are working for you and say, "I'd like to see such-and-such document," and they tell you that you don't need it. Then you have to spend time convincing them that it doesn't matter whether they think you need it or not, they're supposed to hand it to you.

The truth is I made a few good movies in the '50s, then went into freefall.

I've gotten resistance for my entire career.

I've been a working actor for many years, but it's not always been successful for me. I certainly struggled in the past.

I was on 'Gilmore Girls' for seven years and had a couple decent years after that. Then, two years of almost nothing. I had jobs here and there, but I got very, very scared.

With the number of people I ignore, I'm lucky I work at all in this town.

You're always going to have ups and downs - if you look at the careers of a whole bunch of people I respect, some of them have good movies, some of them have bad movies. I remember Andrew Garfield said that the only power we really have as actors - or one of the main powers we have as actors - is our choices. We can make interesting choices, but as soon as you've made that choice, so much else is in play: the director, the script can change, the other actors. All you can do is try to make interesting choices and, once you're in it, just do the best you can.

I do remember when I was starting acting, going from one set to the next, with not much else going on in my life. And at the end of the day, you get back to your hotel room and just feel this awful loneliness, because the cameras have stopped rolling.

When I was little, my father was one of the biggest names in Hollywood. Suddenly - and how it happened to him was always a great mystery to me - he wasn't a star anymore; he was on the fringe. From the time I was 14, I was always conscious of a sense of worry, of terrific insecurity - agents, phony talk, the waits for the phone to ring.

Being rejected is not nice, and it never gets any easier no matter where you are in your career.