A biography for Ari Graynorhasn’t been written yet.
“Part of doing good work is caring deeply about it, believing in what you're doing, and getting incredibly attached to the characters that you're playing, the stories you're telling, and the people you're working with.”
“I was a highly sensitive kid, sort of an old soul, and I felt like a lot of people in my peer group didn't fully understand me, or I couldn't fully be myself. I just wasn't engaged in a way that was fulfilling me.”
“Our everyday lives exist with comedy and tragedy next to each other.”
“On stage, you have nothing to hide behind. It allows the work to live in a more organic place. It's almost like a meditation. You have to go on that stage and be as present as possible.”
“I started acting when I was seven, so I've read my share.”
“Don't believe anything you read on Wikipedia!”
“At the end of the day, if you're an actor, you want to act. And it's not something you can do in the living room alone. If you're a painter, you can paint at home. If you write music, you can write on your own.”
“I would love to be in 'Downton Abbey.' That's the thing I thing many people would have a good laugh with me saying anything like that. I feel like that's the next phase of my career. To reprove to everyone that I can do things besides the crazy characters.”
“Acting was the place where I could be free and feel confident.”
“I did babysit a little bit when I was young. I prefer babysitting for babies. I always loved babies. I was not as great with kids that wanted to be entertained and that wanted to talk.”
“I've always just admired women who were able to navigate through dramatic and comedic waters and sort of do it all.”
“The language can be different, but the emotional lives are the same no matter whether you're doing Shakespeare or Stoppard or something else... The emotional life is all the same.”
“It's such a tough business. And once people see you a certain way, it's really hard for them to change their minds about you.”
“There's a certain truism that you can't be self-conscious in comedy.”
“Onstage was where I felt the most confident and in control and free, and as I've gotten older, it's gotten more and more daunting. And I think that's also part of my desire to keep confronting that and pushing through to find that childlike or youthful ignorance against fear and keep at it.”
“When I was kid, I couldn't wait to take the world by storm, to be a woman - beautiful, powerful, confident, sexy, thoughtful, and deep. All the things I knew I was inside... even though I was only 4.”
“Comedy is funny when it comes from truth, and that's always the rule of them. It's about how far you can push that boundary.”
“As an actor, your life is constant ups and downs. My friends and I joke that when a job ends and nothing is lined up, you have nothing to do for the rest of your life. You just ride that wave.”
“You look at Richard Pryor and Robert Klein and George Carlin and Richard Lewis - those guys were so smart, they were the thinking-man stand-ups.”
“If I'm gonna stay in this world of comedy, then it has to be a really special character to me in a really smart piece of material.”