I originally wanted to be a pop star. I wanted to be Kylie Minogue. My dad thought that was a very silly ambition and introduced me to drama classes. Once I became fixated on that, there was no stopping me.
I think that when I was child, acting was mostly just a hobby for me. It was something that my parents encouraged me to think of the way that my brothers thought of their cross-country classes, or my little sister to dance classes and art classes, and it was something like that for me.
When I was in New York after I left the Army, I studied for two years at the American Theater Wing, studied acting, which involved dance and fencing and speech classes and history of theater, all that.
It’s easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play.
I think it’s better when you’re natural, when you just do whatever you want, instead of doing classes where I see all these other people holding back because they’ve been trained with certain skills or techniques. I’m like, whatever.
I wanted to be an actor, like, so, so bad. I took acting classes, I auditioned for Disney, and then I realized how nervous I got with remembering lines.
I recommend that people try new stuff or take new fitness classes all the time. It’s important to mix up your routine, not only for your body, but also for your mental state.
At Evergreen you can create your own major and your own classes. So I actually studied stand-up comedy.
I fell into acting because I was really shy, and so at night after work, I took public speaking and improv classes, and I started going to auditions sort of as a dare. That was my version of ‘Fear Factor.’
Improv classes were too expensive, so I just started going to open mics. And the day I did it, I did, like, three because I just loved it so much. It was so much fun. And it wasn’t good, it was just fun to do. It felt like a release.
I’m really not worrying about jumping weight classes. For me, the weight is not a problem.
I started watching English news channels and would repeat after the anchor. Since coaching classes were expensive, I joined a call centre where, after undergoing training for a month, I quit. I followed this strategy in 15 BPOs. I could earn money and learn English at the same time.
I wrote my first 30 books as a teacher. I would read to my classes, and they’d give me feedback. I was trying to role model.
Most of my friends all tend to work in restaurants part time, doing acting classes on the side.
I love doing demonstrations. I think to be a great chef you have to be a great teacher. I love doing classes with people who love food and enjoy food, bringing them all around one table so to speak.
I started taking all these cooking classes. I learned a lot in them, but you think you’re going to retain it, and you don’t. Under the pressure, it’s hard to retain everything.
I must know good yoga classes in about 25 cities on this planet.
People who teach American history survey classes have a lot of ground to cover and tend to focus on landmarks. You get through the Civil War and Reconstruction, and you have to get to the beginning of the 20th century fast. It’s pretty easy to go lightly on the Gilded Age.
I’ve taken salsa classes. I love dancing and I love to karaoke. So I bought a microphone with some tapes and my son and I karaoke. I know the entire ‘Dora the Explorer’ soundtrack.
There was a time when my mum would sew costumes for the dance studio so we could keep doing our classes because we couldn’t afford them.
There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord.
I started doing work as an extra and began taking acting classes. My height didn’t seem to matter and no one was making fun of me. I found where I belonged.
It fell into my lap. I grew up doing dance classes. And one day, a film production company contacted my dance school looking for background dancers. I wasn’t looking for it. It just happened. And I found myself on set. And that was that.
Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. The modern industrial proletariat does not belong to the category of such classes.
I had originally wanted to be a lawyer. Even when I went to college and majored in engineering, I still thought I’d get a law degree. Then I started taking electrical engineering classes where I saw some of the innovation happening around computers and solid-state technology in the mid ’80s.
Personally, I had a great education. My mum was a trained teacher, a Montessori teacher, and I know that I could not have written ‘Eragon’ if I had gone into a public school system because I would have just been too busy attending classes and doing homework – I wouldn’t have had the time to write.
‘The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movement in Iraq,’ by Hanna Batatu. Few may wish to take on this massive, obscure work, but it changed my life, and I love it.
I sat in on some songwriting classes, and it was really bloody hard, a lot of music theory. I’d be sitting there, and they’d be talking all this music theory, and the teacher would say, ‘Let’s ask our guest Jimmy what he thinks,’ and I’d be sitting there thinking, ‘Please don’t ask me, please don’t ask me.’
I’ve done figure drawing classes or whatever.
I can set up shop anywhere. I’ve got my oils, I’ve got my yoga mat and I’m good to go. I must know good yoga classes in about 25 cities on this planet.
It was important to focus on working-class women because we so rarely focus, particularly in period films, on the working people. The suffragettes brought together women of all classes, which was one of the striking things about the movement.
I teach classes 28 weeks of the year, but the rest of the time I do research and write books. While I’m writing a book, which I probably do two out of every three years, it’s like having a second job. I squeeze in the hours when I can.
My school in St. Louis is great. They basically created a program where I can do online classes and independent studies when I’m traveling. But then I still get to go home and take classes in a normal school environment.
When I got out of high school, I was working in restaurants in New York City, when I heard Bill Anderson from The Neighborhood Playhouse was doing private lessons. I started taking classes, and it was a lot of improv and Meisner and repetition.
With Skype video calling, teachers can provide their students with first-hand knowledge from experts around the world and with other classes who are studying the same subject halfway across the world.
I was an All-American at three different weight classes in college. Started off at 149, then 157, and then finished up my senior year at 165.
I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like Meryl Streep, who can play all sorts of characters. A good writer should be able to cross gender lines and people of all social classes. So for me, writing from a male point of view would be a great challenge, that I would look forward to taking on.
I loved the gentlemanly way they treated each other. It was unlike anything I was used to. I started helping them strike the set and, at 11, began taking acting classes privately.
When I was in college and reading music and doing ear training, I was a little more advanced than the other people in my choir classes. So to entertain myself and kind of annoy the friends around me, I would sing just under the pitch or just above the pitch.
Socialism is nothing but the capitalism of the lower classes.
Let’s face it, I only practice yoga because the classes are always packed with beautiful women.
I loved the atmosphere of the dance studios – the wooden floors, the big mirrors, everyone dressed in pink or black tights, the musicians accompanying us – and the feeling of ritual the classes had.
I taught writing classes at the University of Pennsylvania for a number of years and I realized that all you can do is encourage people and give them assignments and hope they will write them.
I took acting classes, and I’m always trying to improve myself. Everyone can improve, and the more you work in the industry, the better you are going to feel about it.
I hated high school. Ugh. I couldn’t wait until it was over so I could sleep in. In college, I made sure all my classes were in the afternoon. I hated getting up in the morning.
My childhood was a mix of ballet classes and debating society. I liked arguing. As a teenager, I wanted to be an author. Later on, inspired by Young Enterprise and the Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, I decided I wanted to go into business.
In American math classes, we teach a lot of concepts poorly over many years. In the Asian systems they teach you very few concepts very well over a few years.
All history has been a history of class struggles between dominated classes at various stages of social development.
There are so many people that say they are actors and they don’t spend for 5 minutes a day working on their craft. You need to train and need to take classes to keep your tools sharp. I’m always in class, whether it’s theater or drama workshops.
