I've always had a day job and never been just acting.
— Allison Tolman
I haven't been recognized out in public or anything. The strangeness of celebrity has been relegated to Twitter, which is kind of manageable.
Improv training allows you to get out of your head a little bit and take more risks, which is something I would like to continue to improve upon.
I did a lot of commercial and theater work when I got out of school and was living in Dallas, and I moved to Chicago to go through the Second City Conservatory Program.
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.
My mother has stories of leaving me in the bath as small kid, like a 3-year-old, and there being mirrors on the side, and her going to get a towel and coming back in, and me making faces at myself, like, 'Now I'm happy. Now I'm sad.'
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.
Body-shaming is something I feel really strongly about. I think about my niece, I think about my friends who have daughters being on the Internet and reading these things, and it just makes me furious. It makes me so angry.
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.
At 32, I kind of thought I was past the point where I was gonna get a break that really changed my life overnight.
I went to New York for the first time when I was in college for a school trip and, uh, it did not appeal to me. It was too much hustle and bustle.
I moved to Chicago and I did theater, and then I started writing and I stop acting and I did sketch. You know, I did all of the things that, if you were serious about doing television, don't do.
I worked in IT for about three years for a tiny firm with ten other people.
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.
The thing about theater that always and still kind of makes me edgy is that you work and work and work and work, and then you're just in performance mode, and then you have to just be on; the work is done, and then you just have to do it over and over again, so you're just constantly at that performance level.
I've done some version of that Minnesota accent - that Midwestern accent - in sketch comedy for years. It's the quickest way to symbolize you're a mom.
I worked for three years in a small IT firm in Chicago. I managed our client base, so I translated into human speak for our technicians. But our company was sold, and the atmosphere and the culture really changed, so I quit without having anything else lined up.
