Allison Tolman

“Most of the time you spend filming a show is time you spend without the cameras on, when you're not acting.”

“It was important for me as a theater artist to allow myself and my interests to evolve over time and allow my notion of what success meant to evolve over time. I've always had a day job and never been just acting. But it didn't make me feel like I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing.”

“I've been working as an actress and sort of struggling along for ten years, so I've been on a million auditions for a million things I haven't booked.”

“At 32, I kind of thought I was past the point where I was gonna get a break that really changed my life overnight.”

“At Clements, I was an officer in Thespian Troupe No. 3689.”

“Coming out of Dallas and doing commercial work in Dallas - if you had improv background in Dallas, then you were instantly shot to the top of the list of commercial bookings because they loved improvisers because you could elevate the material.”

“I never really acted full-time. I certainly had gotten past the point where fame and fortune was something that I was dreaming about or anticipating.”

“There are a few directors as a young person where I was kind of like, 'Well, these are a sure bet.' The Coens, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson.”

“I did a 20-minute selection of scenes from the play 'Spring Awakening' in college, well before the musical came around, so when the musical was becoming a hot thing, and I was reading interviews with Duncan Sheik about how he came to do the music, I think it's interesting.”

“I liked in television that you do some work, then you perform, then you stop and you have a break because they have to set up lights, and then you do some more work. I really liked the pace of it; it really agreed with me. I enjoyed it.”

“I did Internet dating for a while, and that is rife with horrible dating stories.”

“I guess my interest in performance has evolved and changed many times over the years.”

“I grill, like, every day.”

“Whenever I've done a sketch in which I'm asked to play a mom, my brain goes to Minnesota. It makes the character seem matronly, warm, the kind of person that takes care of you and brings you Campbell's soup when you're sick. It's a great shortcut.”

“I need an office and a place I can sit down to get away from television and just write.”

“As a newcomer, you know, you don't come out the gate as a singer and try to compare with Judy Garland.”

“I know the benefits of having a really great improv show are amazing because it was this one rare and fleeting thing that was incredible, but the risk just didn't appeal to me. I liked the control of sitting down and writing things.”

“What is right is not always popular.”

“When I first got out of school, I went on a children's theater tour, and I went around the country a little bit that fall, and it was the first time I went to Chicago. We spend a couple of days in Chicago, and I was really struck viscerally by the city.”

“I'm from Texas, and Texas has a reputation that far precedes actual Texas, and it is irritating sometimes.”