I grew up in South Central Los Angeles in the ’80s, back when it just wasn’t a cool scene. But my mother had the foresight to look for a number of projects that would keep us away from the streets.
You can get stuff done in New York that you can’t in Los Angeles. If you wanted to get some milk and get your shoes repaired and drop something off at the dry cleaner, that’s an all-day adventure in Los Angeles. In New York, you can bang that out in half an hour.
Los Angeles, I don’t like that town. Too decadent, and it’s slimy.
I grew up in Los Angeles, where long drives on packed freeways make everyone a fan of radio and, particularly, of America’s national treasure, National Public Radio.
There something to be said for having even unrealistic dreams. Even if the dreams don’t come true – that, to me, is what’s beautiful about Los Angeles. It’s full of these people who have moved there to chase these dreams.
It feels great seeing posters everywhere, and bus stops promoting ‘Black Nativity,’ and billboards in Los Angeles. It’s overwhelming. I can’t wait for everybody to see what I got.
The great thing about Los Angeles is that you can get so much money in this town by constantly failing. You can get a lot of television deals that don’t go anywhere, but you still get paid.
Los Angeles, Houston, Denver, Atlanta: those are all cities that really didn’t get big, didn’t hit their stride until the 20th century.
Reggie Jackson hit one off me that’s still burrowing its way to Los Angeles.
Los Angeles was really beautiful, and California in general is a great place to live.
I started at Howard in the drama department. At the same time, I was a fledgling member of the Black Repertory Company in Washington, D.C. When I graduated, I had the great fortune of being in the Los Angeles production of ‘For Colored Girls’… And all these years since, I’ve done stage work.
I fell in love with theater there, and after graduation I moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting.
I trained in theater. I loved Los Angeles, but I’ve found New York to be successful for me.
Missing Persons was based in Los Angeles.
Thank God I don’t live in Los Angeles. I think if you’re there the whole time it just gets out of proportion and you lose touch completely with reality.
I jumped between two seven-story buildings in Los Angeles, launching from one rooftop to the other with ramps.
It’s hard to bury your head in Los Angeles. People come up to you and say, ‘Hey, I saw your picture on a bus.’ It’s tricky: You’re excited by the possibilities, but you don’t want to get too crazy.
I describe my years in Los Angeles as 12 years of culture shock.
It took me forever to leave Chicago. I went to Columbia College because I wasn’t ready to leave! My professors had to kick me in the pants to move to Los Angeles.
Los Angeles County is one of the most park-poor urban areas in the nation, and the San Gabriel Valley – stretching from Pasadena to Pomona – is especially starved for open space.
In 1983, I was working at an art gallery in Los Angeles and going to film school at Los Angeles City College. At that time, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a young painter and was visiting L.A. for his first show at the Larry Gagosian Gallery.
I’m one of the only actresses in Los Angeles who has never waited tables – yet – and I’m so terrible at holding trays. When we shot the ‘Vampire Diaries’ pilot, I totally spilled water all down Nina Dobrev, and she had to get her hair and make-up redone.
I must say to you that my intensions for instance doing German, it is because Victoria de los Angeles is nothing to do with wanting to be like a German singer.
I’m excited about Los Angeles because I believe in her. I believe in her destiny. I think that the fact that we have so many different people from so many parts of the world is a big reason why L.A. is the city of America’s promise.
There’s something particular about the way Los Angeles feels in the summertime. It slows down and is hazy and dreamy, and you can put on certain music and go for a drive and be totally sober but feel stoned.
I did tons of theater in school, and then when I was 16 and got my driver’s license, I started driving to Los Angeles, along with my friend Eric Stoltz, who was a year ahead of me and was doing the same thing. So we had the same manager, and we started auditioning for things and doing commercials when we were 16.
In Los Angeles, it’s always nice out. In New York, it can be nice out or horrifying. You really have no idea what you’re going to get on any given day.
Los Angeles traffic is just the worst thing in the world. It throws off timing so much. However, it’s always warm and sunny. New Jersey has absolutely terrible weather, but the environment is really homey and chill.
I’m not sure whether Los Angeles borders on the ocean or on oblivion. I always feel that I’m two steps away from the other side when I’m out there. It’s more like a vacation place or a place to visit than a place to hunker down.
Most performers don’t get a chance to sing in Los Angeles.
Legends like Jim Murray at the ‘Los Angeles Times’ and Shirley Povich at the ‘Washington Post’ were the most beloved guys at their papers. They’d write a cherished column for 30 years, and that was it. There was nothing else to do, no higher job to attain.
Los Angeles is where I became an actor.
I’ve never really been told my game reflects like I’m from Los Angeles. I’m always told that I have more of an East Coast type game.
At Johnny’s suggestion I pursued a career in radio that eventually brought me to Los Angeles.
I began my career in Los Angeles and started working fairly quickly.
Los Angeles is such a town of show business, and I’m a terrible celebrity. I find it difficult – it’s the beast that must be fed. There’s this big wheel of pictures and articles that goes around, and you get pinned on it.
I don’t know if you have ever seen the Woody Allen film ‘Annie Hall,’ but it is, in a way, to Los Angeles and ‘Hollywood’ what ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ is to many musicians.
My father was a police officer in Los Angeles.
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for at least 24 years.
I’m a very law-abiding citizen, and I’ve never consciously broken any law. I get nervous just jaywalking in Los Angeles!
I made a dollar a day sweeping a laundry out. Then we made a record that was number two in Los Angeles. We got so excited hearing it on the radio that Carl threw up.
I’ve lost bags all over the world and had cases end up in London, Frankfurt, Los Angeles and Miami.
In high school, I was on the youth advisory council for the Mayor’s Office of Los Angeles, and that was kind of my first experience in the bureaucratic system. We tried to get things done, and nobody was really interested in getting anything done.
I had done a couple of auditions for ‘Amistad’ and didn’t feel it was going to go any further – and then the call came about heading to Los Angeles to work with Steven Spielberg. It was surreal: exciting, challenging, overwhelming.
I think when I first started out making music here in Los Angeles, a lot of people were really curious about my ethnicity, and you know, whatever questions they had, I’d be more than happy to answer them.
People have this impression that once you move to America, that becomes your interest. But I never moved to Los Angeles; I stayed in New York because I do theatre, so my aim is not just Hollywood.
During college, in Los Angeles, I interned all over Hollywood. Development roles appealed to me; they were a perfect blend of business and creativity.
One of our books has been made into a musical, ‘The Great American Mousical,’ which I directed at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut. And another, ‘Simeon’s Gift,’ has been adapted for a symphony orchestra and five performers. I’m also a very proud member of the board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t work out like us regular folks. Adulation bathes him from the moment he arrives at his Los Angeles martial arts studio.
I just never did buy this idea that you have to live in Los Angeles to be an actor. I didn’t see that as a requirement in my job description.
I think there’s a part when you sign your soul to the devil and start working in Los Angeles that you also sign away that you could be a human being in anyone’s eye. You’re like a robot!
I always wished I had a chance to meet an NFL player or even a college player when I was growing up in Los Angeles.
In the neighborhood where my studio is, in South Central Los Angeles, there are a lot of immigrant-owned businesses. I’m constantly amazed at the level of work they do. It’s above anything. For me, I think I pattern myself on that work ethic.
In Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted and everything that wasn’t tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California.
A lot of the people in Northern California and parts of Oregon have decided that we are not on the same page as San Francisco and Portland and Los Angeles. I don’t know if six states is a solution because is Washington, D.C. and the rest of the country really going to give California 10 new senators?
I like the enthusiasm but not the insincerity of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is a good city in which to be a reporter. Always entertaining, always an incubator.
