Diego Klattenhoff Quotes

To be an actor wasn’t something that seemed realistic. I started late; I was about 19.

I’m from a very, very rural place. There’s really nobody out there, just roads and farms.

I grew up playing hockey and baseball, so I wish I had time to get back into it, but living in L.A. and North Carolina, you have to take advantage of the golf.

I’d like to get back home to Nova Scotia more, but thankfully, with technology you can call and text and FaceTime. But physically being in Toronto or Nova Scotia… there’s nothing like it.

You have to get the casting right. You have to get the people behind it. Your director might not be the right director for the project. And then, it has to test and those people in that room, wherever they are, have to turn those buttons the right way at the right time.

People didn’t stop me before for a guest spot that I did on ‘Smallville.’ Nothing against ‘Smallville,’ but people didn’t freak out in traffic to tell me they love my show.

Luckily, I had that experience on ‘Homeland,’ to work with these unreal people who are unbelievably talented, great actors.

I worked at this great Toronto bar, Indian Motorcycle. I started off as the grunt. I was the guy who cleaned up the puke and the ashtrays and the garbage. Worked in front from four in the afternoon until four in the morning.

A lot of people are attracted to the acting profession because they think it’s a cheap, easy, free ride. It really isn’t.

I grew up working on farms. You’d do anything for money. You’d pick blueberries in the summertime for weeks; you’d cut down, like, spruce and fir trees for pulp.

For years, I did whatever I could just to pay the bills and gain experience and work with as many different people as I could.

I moved away when I was young, when I was about 19. I’d literally come from an area with dirt roads and stuff like that, right to the centre of a city of about five million people. It’s been great. I’m based in New York, and every day, it’s amazing.

Charlotte is a very interesting place – I’m Canadian, but I’ve lived in Toronto, Vancouver, and I’ve been living here in L.A. for years.

It’s all about learning your craft and honing it in and really paying attention to people who are doing it and what their advice is. It’s like anything: it takes years and years and years. A lot of it comes down to work ethic.

I’ve been really fortunate to be associated with all these great shows.

In Canada, the only weapons you have are for hunting.

I grew up in Nova Scotia, so there weren’t a whole lot of rules.

I’m extremely patriotic. I’ll always be Canadian.

There’s two sides to the sword. It’s like, for as many people that love you, there’s all the people out there who hate you.

You put on the military outfit, and it definitely tightens everything up and makes you stand up straighter.

I got two older brothers and two younger sisters, and we grew up in the country, and we were a little feral. So as long as the car didn’t end up in the rhubarb and you didn’t get caught for doing whatever you were doing, you were fine.

I’m going for that Mark Wahlberg look. Strong and confident.

I’m a jeans, T-shirt, boots kind of guy.

In Nova Scotia, there are some definite down-home accents, and it’s funny because you can go to Sydney, and one guy is from North Sydney, and you can’t understand a thing he‘s saying, or Glace Bay or wherever.

I can’t tell you how good it is to go from ‘Homeland’ to be lucky enough to find ‘The Blacklist’ at the right time. It literally came at the very end of pilot season when I thought there was nothing left.

I’m so happy with ‘The Blacklist.’ Give me more people to shoot and throw them off buildings.

You’re always just trying to create opportunities and be ready when those opportunities present themselves. I can’t look at anybody and think ‘I want to be Damian Lewis‘ – I’d be setting myself up for failure.

I don’t know – to be honest, I don’t really model myself after anybody.

I played a really good guy for two years on ‘Homeland,’ and I was champing at the bit to play a bad guy.

I’m not one of these actors who’s out of touch with reality, put it that way.