Time & Perspective Quote by Leon Askin

There’s something almost disarmingly absolute in Askin’s phrasing: not “I wanted to act,” but “my profession in life.” It’s the language of a vow, the kind people usually reserve for religion or ideology, which makes the line feel both romantic and a little defensive. An actor isn’t just naming a job here; he’s staking a claim that his life has a single spine running through it, a continuity strong enough to survive everything that would normally fracture a biography.

That matters because Askin’s life did fracture. Born in Vienna, he came of age in a Europe where being an artist, being Jewish, being outspoken, or simply being in the wrong place could turn “profession” into exile overnight. When someone with that historical backdrop insists “from that moment on,” he’s quietly asserting agency against a century that specialized in stripping it away. The subtext isn’t only devotion to craft; it’s survival through identity. If the world can take your home, your language, your status, then you hold tighter to the one thing that still feels self-authored.

The second half - “and has remained until today” - does a different kind of work. It reads like a rebuttal to anyone who might reduce acting to whim or vanity. Askin frames performance as endurance, not glamour: the long game of showing up, taking roles, adapting accents, and being legible to new audiences. “An actor’s life” becomes more than employment. It’s a portable self, a way of staying coherent while history tries to make you discontinuous.