LAURA RAMSEY: I'm a hard worker. So when you come out here and you audition, that really is your job! It’s going out on all these auditions and preparing for them. Sometimes I feel like I should be doing something else, like I'm not working hard enough [at life]. It’s weird, but sometimes I feel like I need to go teach, or help kids or something. But the auditioning is really important, because that’s what gets you the job. If you don't audition, you don't get a movie.

MARY ELIZABETH WINSTEAD: Acting is a job. You have to do everything that is required of you to do your job the best way that you can. You have to meet as many people as possible and make connections and get your face out there and all that stuff in order to keep your job, to keep being a working actor. Becoming a "name" is part of what will help me do that. I don’t want to be hugely famous; I just want to be notable enough to be able to continue working. I do not want to be mobbed just walking down the street. That doesn’t sound like an ideal way to live to me.

TIFFANY DUPONT: I think that to really be successful you need to realize that yes, you're an artist and yes, you're creative, but the bottom line is you're a product that is being marketed. If you're going to create a successful business you have to realize that's another element or aspect of what you're doing. I think a lot of younger actors just don't know about that, don't understand it, or just get caught up in all of the partying, the fame and the money. Those other things are a part of it, yes, but they need to be handled a certain way. If these guys get me into a room and my acting’s not my number one focus, it's not going to even matter how rich or famous I am. It doesn't matter if I was on a red carpet, or the cover of a magazines, if I'm not able to produce the kind of quality of acting that they want, I'm not going to get where I want to be.

MEAGAN GOOD: I think with the people that they talk about who do waitress and who came from a small town and they hit it big, it appears if it may have happened overnight, or that they just got discovered and their career took off, but in actuality, that person was probably waitressing for years and auditioning for years and had several smaller parts here and there before they got on something where they were discovered and things took off. The appearance that it happens over night is not realistic for anybody, except maybe for Edward Furlong when he got put in Terminator 2 and that happened 15 years ago.

LAURA RAMSEY: My story is as close to that typical story about a small town waitress [making it as an actress] as you can get. It's so weird when I really think about it. My best friend in high school understood my passion for acting and wrote me her last check in her checkbook for $100. So I moved to California with $100, and another friend whom I lost along the way. When I first moved out here, I stayed with a friend of a friend. I stayed on their floor, because there was another person living there too.

It’s weird, I mean, I met my manager while I was waiting on her table one day. She asked me if I had headshots or a resume and I had literally no idea what she was talking about.

HAYLIE DUFF: I’ve never really been that good at the schmoozing. I go to different events and stuff, but I’m a person who goes in and, twenty minutes later, finds a way to sneak out the back door. I just never found that it’s really helped me. People that I meet at all those parties are never the ones that I’m in front of or am reading for or are producing things that I want to go after. I just need to be a little more outgoing or something. I’m not the person who can walk up to someone and say, "Hi, I heard you’re doing this movie and I want to be in it." I can’t do that. That’s not my style.

MEAGAN GOOD: A lot of people get work because of the relationships that they have or the people that they know. Even if you are good at schmoozing people and creating those relationships, I don’t believe that you’ll have longevity if you don’t have the acting chops to back it up. The two do go hand-in-hand. On the other side, you have the actors who have the chops, but they’re not very social. It’s the best combination when they’re hand-in-hand.

NORA ZEHETNER: I don’t really do that much of the partying. Maybe I’d be better off if I did. I’m kind of a mess half the time if I go to an event. I don’t have the hair and makeup person. My friends will come meet me at my house and I’ll be in jeans and a T-shirt and no makeup. I stay in more than anything. I don’t really like to go out–occasionally it’s fun but… I’m sure in the future I’ll have to do it more, but right now, I blissfully don’t have to. I’m not going to say, "It’s so awful." So many people would be thrilled to go to these parties and things, but I don’t want that to consume my life. I think you make choices. Some people go occasionally to things or do things just for their movies; press for their movies. It’s all very proper. There are other people who just like to be in the limelight, so they go out all the time.

MARY ELIZABETH WINSTEAD: I haven’t gotten into that yet. I haven’t done the party thing. That’s the most exhausting thing for me. You’re taking meetings all day as it is, auditioning and meeting with people and offices… Going out to parties is just more work and it’s exhausting. Not only are you having to meet people for work, but you have to talk over the loud music and there are bodies everywhere.