Starting Out
At the age of 14, Johnson performed in his first school play, cast in a role as the mad scientist in The Pink Panther Strikes Again. On opening night he was spotted by the late Rhonda Schepisi, former wife of director Fred Schepisi. Taking the reins, she helped Johnson acquire an Equity Card and find auditions.
"So I literally got a phone call on the first night I'd ever been in a play. She marched me to the union and demanded that they give me a card, then she drove me to an agent and demanded they take me on. It was somewhat fortuitous and I happened to get the first 20 or so jobs I went for. This career was certainly not designed by me."
Read more about this topic: Samuel Johnson (actor)
Famous quotes containing the word starting:
“A hook shot kisses the rim and
hangs there, helplessly, but doesn’t drop
and for once our gangly starting center
boxes out his man and times his jump
perfectly, gathering the orange leather
from the air like a cherished possession”
—Edward Hirsch (b. 1950)
“To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)