As a child, one of my defense mechanisms was to try to be funny. My mom tried to nurture that by putting me in acting class. But I got bored when we stopped pretending to be trees and actually had to work.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Somewhere around the fifth or seventh grade I figured out that I could ingratiate myself to people by making them laugh. Essentially, I was just trying to make them like me. But after a while it became part of my identity.
I think I was a behavior problem, mostly, but in a fun way. I tried to tell jokes. I was the middle kid, so I was always looking for attention and trying to be the one that equalized everything.
I got attention by being funny at school, pretending to be retarded, and jumping around with a deformed hand.
I started acting in second grade - my first role was in the Thanksgiving play. I was the Indian chasing the turkey. All the other mom's encouraged my mom to get me into acting after that. Also, when I saw 'The Sound of Music' at Music Circus, I knew I wanted to act.
When I was a child, I always wanted to be funny and to please people in my family. As you grow up that instinct becomes more refined, but it's still there.
I spent a lot of time taking acting lessons... Actors have no inhibitions, and I'm inhibited by everything. To be able to make fun of yourself is a skill and a liberating experience.
When I was a kid, I used to pretend to be Bond; I used to make up scenarios and irritate my sister and annoy my mother and father pretending to be someone else, so I kind of was already acting when I was a child. I just didn't really know it.
I think the kids in school that laughed at the clothes that we wore and the house that we lived in, and then my mother had to cut hair... I think that was a good motivator. Every time they laughed at me, they just built a fire, and there was only one way to put it out - to try and show 'em I was as good as they were.
I was an extroverted kid and performed, like, acting and singing. Then, the older I got, I realized I enjoyed performing things that I came up with myself more and I enjoyed making people laugh more than making people cry or think.
I started acting because I was miserable and crazy and wanted to be someone else, to run around and scream in front of people without getting in trouble.
No opposing quotes found.