Actresses From Los Angeles

"The desire to be perfect. Women innately have this weird thing where they try to have a perfect persona—to look perfect, be perfect, act perfect, have their kids look a certain way. Women put so much pressure on themselves."

"I don’t wear makeup. I don’t wash my hair every day. It’s not something that I associate with myself. I commend women who wake up 30, 40 minutes early to put on eyeliner. I think it’s ­beautiful. I’m just not that person. So to go to a shoot and have my makeup artist put on face cream and send me off to do a photo, I was like, “Well, this makes life easy.”"

"Sadly, in any industry and in any work-related environment, females always strive to achieve a certain amount of perfection, whether that be skinny or pretty. It's a constant, in our society."

"Comedy is very hard and I don't know if it's where my heart necessarily is but doing comedy is one of those things where if something is funny right now does not necessarily mean it's going to sustain itself for a year in production and be funny when the movie comes out and that to me is the hardest thing. I love playing different characters and I love doing fun things and I love to entertain people, whether that be in a comedy or a drama. If I get you to laugh or I get you to cry I'm super stoked, as morbid as that might sound."

"I wanted to quit the industry when I was eighteen and finish '70's', finish my contract on the show and go to college because I was pretty convinced that after '70's and after being on a show for eight years that I would be very much pigeonholed for something specific that I didn't want to be a part of anymore. So my attempt at college failed miserably and I dropped out and decided that this is what I wanted to do for a living. When I made that decision I had to convince myself to disassociate myself from the industry, if that makes any sense, to be who I am and to have this just be what I do and that the paths could never cross. If they did then I think that given after '70's it was like a good year of just pure rejection. So if I didn't disassociate myself from what I did I would probably go through depression, I would assume, or go through some hard times. But I didn't and I always had some other things that were more important to me. I had family that was more important. I had my life that was more important. I had hobbies that were more important and this was just my job."

"I didn't fail out. I dropped out. I did not fail. I was actually a pretty good student. My problem was that I didn't know what I wanted to study. What was I going to go in? Undecided? I took a class on Zionist theory. I took classes that interested me, that weren't necessarily for a specific degree. Then I realized and spoke to my parents and I said, 'I do love what I do and I want to pursue it.' They were like, 'Oh, why don't you just drop out.'"

"You want to be honest with a character and play it truthfully, and you want to be genuine with your character."

"I would say that by third grade I spoke pretty fluent English. I don't remember much of second grade. I've said this before. I was not a traumatized kid, by any means with the way that this might come out, but I pretty much blocked out all of second grade in the states. I'm guessing it was because it was hard and my parents said that I came home crying every night but I don't remember it. I think it was rough because I just didn't know where I was and I didn't get the culture. I didn't get the people. I'll be honest, I never...I met an African American person for the first time in my life when I was seven. I didn't know they existed. I didn't know there were people of a different color. I didn't know people with red hair existed. It wasn't even...it wasn't because I wasn't taught that in school but I think it just wasn't where I grew up. So much of it was, forget the language barrier, just a culture shock. I think adapting to the culture was much harder than actually learning English."

"I don’t think that we need to consider the people of Russia an enemy. I do really want to emphasize that. I don’t think that that’s being said enough in the press. I think that there’s now ‘If you’re not with us, you’re against us’ mentality. And I don’t want people to conflate the two problems that are happening. I don’t think it’s the people of Russia… I do encourage people to look at it from the perspective of, ‘It’s the people in power, not the people themselves’."

"And I also don’t want people to get discouraged and conflate different issues in the world, and I don’t want people to compare. I think that one thing that’s happening a little bit that I’ve noticed is people are like, ‘Why is everybody paying attention to this problem, but nobody paid attention to all these other issues that have been happening?’ And I don’t want people to conflate. Like everyone, people just to focus on what is at hand right now and right now this issue can get incredibly catastrophic for the rest of the world – not just for that part of the world, and I don’t want people to lose sight of that."

"I think anyone who at 26 is going to attempt to be a professional ballerina is going to physically kill themselves. Baths are what I looked forward to, every single night! And a glass of wine!"

"I turned to my kids and I was like, ‘You are half-Ukrainian, half-American!’ I literally was like, ‘Look, you!’ And my kids were like, ‘Yeah mom, I get it.’ And I was like, ‘No! You are Ukrainian and American.’ I was like, ‘You are half-Iowa, half-Ukraine.’ And they’re like, ‘Okay, I get it. It’s been irrelevant to me that I come from Ukraine. It never mattered. So much so that I’ve always said I’m Russian, right? Like I’ve always been, ‘I’m from Russia’ for a multitude of reasons…"

"It's all perspective. Your version of normal and my version of normal is different. My kids' version of normal is incredibly different. So it's perspective. You try to surround them with diversity. We try to surround ourselves with all aspects of life and try not to stay in our bubble, but it's hard. It is really hard! And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying."

"That is the biggest form of bullying ever, the paparazzi. Printing lies, making accusations, it's just bullying."

"I very much have always felt like an American… People were like, ‘Oh, you’re so Eastern European.’ I was like, ‘I’m so L.A.!"

"From every film you learn something new, but from my experience you never know what film is going to open what doors, and it always happens when you least expect it."

"I feel like every role you take, there's a part of you that obviously feels like you can do it. I don't know if perfect is the right word because I don't believe in perfection. I don't think it exists."

"You may work, you may be lucky, but if you do something and it compromises your values, your inner heart and what you believe in and you go against that, nothing you ever do can get that back. It is very difficult to stand up for what you believe in, to let people know, “I’m not going to do that.” It is very difficult to see your peers rising in status and you’re still sitting back working your way up because you won’t do certain things. You have to be true to yourself. As a performer, as a human being you have to be true to yourself, because once you compromise, you sell out."

"The first time I did a convention, I didn’t know what to expect. But I was so pleasantly surprised with all the people and all the kindness and all the love they have for this franchise. I am just one lucky actor … Who again, was in the right place at the right time. I am so grateful the be a part of this franchise…it is truly timeless."

"Your work is your work so you have to attack it the same, but there's something to be said about having more takes."

"The main issue when it comes to hiring someone from Asia is the language barrier. It's difficult to book someone when they don't speak the language and they can't deliver the lines or even speak to the director. But in terms of Asian-American actresses, we all speak it fluently!"

"Here's what I love about social media: You get to peer into people's lives that you normally wouldn't be able to."

"My mom suggested studying acting in college, but I was a bit scared to choose that path because I couldn't wrap my head around the drama school audition process."

"Upon graduation, I hit a wall. All of my good friends from UCLA were taking on jobs they were passionate about, and I felt left behind. It took a bit of soul searching, but in the end, I finally had the guts to pursue acting."

"I don't come from a well-off family. We're very middle-class, lower-middle-class, so that's something I cherish."

"I grew up in a unique environment where I was immersed in both Japanese and American cultures equally."

"It was really fun! It’s definitely difficult when you can’t say what you want to say, [but] she [Kimiko] says a lot without uttering a word. Portraying that has been a challenge but I really don’t know how to explain it; it just comes to me and I kind of become that."

"Even if we didn’t have our current political climate, I think it would be very satisfying to beat up a Nazi. I think when that happened, it was really—it’s satisfying to see onscreen. I was watching it with my boyfriend yesterday and he was like, ‘Yeah, it’s so good. It’s so satisfying, I’ve been wanting this all season.’ But obviously, me as Kimiko, I’ve always wanted to do that."

"But looking back on it, maybe that was just me being this Asian actor who’s used to not being given a story of her own. A lot of times, you’re right, the trope of silent Asian characters is very much a thing. And so I guess a part of me didn’t want to ask for too much, or I didn’t even think about asking for more because she was already given so much. But perhaps that it is the conditioning—that I have been conditioned to think in that way, if you get my drift."

"I believe film and television should reflect our society, and the reality is that there are people in many different shapes and sizes, ethnicities, sexual orientation - the list goes on."

"God was right behind me, making me strong to build my character, to be good and not bad. I prayed never to hurt people like that. The other thing I did was to visualize myself happy in the future, and that gave me strength. God does not give you glory and goodness all your life; you have to grow and learn."

"You need to have that sensibility to say "here's what I like, here's what I don't like" and take it as an actor and go "okay I'm going to change." If you want me to make an adjustment, that my job."

"The tough thing about horror movies is that you have to maintain that high level of terror a lot of the time- and for a long period of time too- that after a 13- or 14-hour day, you just feel god-awful. You feel horrible, almost to the point where you feel like you want to throw up but then you just start playing little psychological mind games with yourself to keep yourself going."

"Whenever I watch movies, it doesn’t matter what it is, I try to I imagine somebody else doing the character."

"Night shoots are always the best."

"A lot of Hollywood is very dark. Girls my age, I find a lot of them that I have literally grown up and auditioned with take these different paths that break their hearts, but they felt like they had to do it in order to get where they want to go. It’s just so hard on their spirit."

"It's true what your mother says, I think any boy who doesn't see that you're special, doesn't deserve your attention."

"The cool thing about working and meeting a lot of people through your acting is that you never know who you might work with, in the future. It’s really great to be able to say that, potentially sometime soon, I’ll be able to make my own movies. It’s definitely a cool business to be in. I feel very lucky!"

"I don't believe God would give you something that you wouldn't be able to use for his glory," Carrol said. I don't believe you have to compromise who you are as a person in order to do what God has called you to do."

"Enjoy the little things in life."

"I believe that you are only in control of so much. So whatever you are not in control of you can’t worry about."

"What keeps you confident in a healthy way is knowing that everyone else around you is going to support you and teach you and you're going to learn from them. I just feel open to learning from people."

"I think every day you try to soak up as much as you can to learn and understand things better."

"I'd like to be more like her where I am always emotional. But to be in this world and to be able to function in it, we should probably put on our layers of socially correct behaviour."

"I was 10 and I was curious about auditioning … and I realized very quickly it wasn't for me because I was missing my sports teams, my dance class and all the extracurricular activities at school. But during that time, I thought, 'I don't want to be associated with [Mary-Kate and Ashley],' for some reason. I guess I understood what nepotism was like inherently as a 10-year-old. I don't know if I knew the word, but there is some sort of association of not earning something that I think bothered me at a very young age."

"People don’t need careers. People should just exist."

"There are people skills that you develop, there's a lot of empathy you build, there’s a lot of putting yourself in other people's shoes. And what you put in is what you receive! There's just so much that you get from working with a group of people intimately, and that's one of my favorite aspects of the job."

"When I was 13, I told my parents I didn’t believe in God any more. I wanted to be an atheist because I believed that religion should be about community and having a place to go in prayer, not something that should determine women’s freedoms."

"I like being able to play make believe as my job. I think I played make-believe growing up a little too long—probably to an inappropriate age. I played make-believe until I was, like, 13 and probably should have been doing something else. But other than that, it’s fun to be able to have to learn about different people. My favorite thing is you have to learn how to work with people that you probably would never try [to]. Some people just aren’t supposed to be in a room together, and you have to be in a room with a group of people who might not all get along and you have to figure out how to come together for one thing. That collaboration is special, and people don’t get to exercise that. I think that’s why people become stubborn, and I think that’s why people become uninspired to change. In this job you have to."

"The struggle comes when you're displaced, when someone is in an industry where they worry about people taking advantage and they don't know what to do with that. I've been lucky not having to worry about that aspect of it as well."