"I didn't want to be famous. I just wanted to earn enough money to have a nice life and enjoy acting"
About this Quote
The phrasing is modest on purpose. "Nice life" is deliberately unspecific, a middle-class aspiration that sounds almost anti-glamour. That vagueness works as subtext: he isnt selling a tortured-artist narrative or claiming moral superiority, just drawing a boundary. "Enjoy acting" is the emotional tell. It suggests that celebrity can corrode the very pleasure that drew him in - the autonomy to choose roles, the privacy to stay human, the freedom to treat acting as a practice instead of a persona.
McCallums career context sharpens the intent. He lived through eras when fame could be sudden and sticky: the 60s television boom, global fan culture, and later the long tail of franchise-like procedural TV. In that landscape, his statement reads as a small act of resistance to the attention economy. It also hints at longevity as a value system: if your goal is sustainable work and a tolerable life, you make different choices than someone chasing headlines.
Quote Details
| Topic | Career |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
McCallum, David. (2026, January 17). I didn't want to be famous. I just wanted to earn enough money to have a nice life and enjoy acting. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-didnt-want-to-be-famous-i-just-wanted-to-earn-48331/
Chicago Style
McCallum, David. "I didn't want to be famous. I just wanted to earn enough money to have a nice life and enjoy acting." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-didnt-want-to-be-famous-i-just-wanted-to-earn-48331/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I didn't want to be famous. I just wanted to earn enough money to have a nice life and enjoy acting." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-didnt-want-to-be-famous-i-just-wanted-to-earn-48331/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.





