Every time my sister and I went on the set with my mother, everyone would be like, 'Oh my god, she's going to become a star.' So in my head, I always thought I was going to be an actress, but not so soon.
My mother says to me, when I'm making a new movie, she says, "Oh, is Steve Buscemi in it?" I'd say, "Yeah." And she, "Oh, then it's going to be a good one." I swear to God, she says that every time. And when I say Steve's not in it, she says, "Oh."
Katherine Heigl was a movie star. I thought she was going to be one, and it was fun to watch this young actress getting better every day.
Each time my mother went psychotic, I hoped it would be the last time. Afterward she would tell me, 'I think that was the final episode. I think I had a breakthrough.' And I would believe-for a few months-that it was true. That she was back to stay. Maybe it was like having a rock star mother who was always on the road. Were there Benatar children? Did they sit around and wonder if their mom's Hell is for Children tour was going to be her last tour?
All of a sudden I was Joan [Mad Man] and they're going, "Oh, so she plays a badass in this." And I'm like, "Oh my god, I get to play badasses." Firefly was a little bit of that, but she started out as a mouse and then she turned into a dragon. But I never really had that opportunity. So all of a sudden people were like, "Oh, do you feel like you're being typecast?" I would say, "No, this is just opening the doors." No one thought I could do it and someone finally trusted me to do it.
For Ananya, It's Bollywood all the way. She was obsessed about it, I thought there was something wrong with her. She was good at academics, so I thought she would become a doctor like my both parents. But, when she got to class VI or so I knew she would be an actress.
I'm often asked what it was like to have a famous mother. I always answer that I really don't know. I knew her first as my mother, and then as my best friend. Only after that did I understand that she was an actress, and with time that she was truly an exceptional actress.
I had once thought I would become a doctor but gave up on the thought soon enough. I took up the racquet instead. Later, when I saw my sister studying so much to become a doctor, I was like, 'Thank God I am a shuttler!'
My mother always, always, always thought that I was going to be famous. Thought that I was going to win Oscars. In fact, I believe I accepted the Oscar as a ketchup bottle many a time in front of my mother in the kitchen. 'I'd like to thank the Academy,' I said with a ketchup bottle.
I was on some TV shows with Lady Gaga the other week, and you could see the difference in reaction between her fans and my fans outside. She comes out, and she looks like a star, and the reaction is just tears, crying, people going, 'Oh my God, Oh my God.' My fans are like: 'Alright, Ed.'
My sister was like my surrogate mother here, in Washington, with very much of the same persuasions as my mother. Even when friends came from home that I knew were more socially adaptable to the mores of the time, she would always caution me and say, "Be careful if you're going out with so and so because you know such and such a thing could happen." It was that kind of guardianship, and concern that imprinted me.
Before I was going to be an actress, I was going to be a veterinarian! I thought I was one as a child. I was the kid who was like, 'Daddy! I want a kitty! It needs a mommy!' And my dad was such a sucker. Every time I would beg, with tears flying down my face, about how this animal needs love, needs a home. He would cave.
One thing I've noticed is that I can tell when a young actor or a young actress is going to become a huge star. Everybody else will say, "Oh come on, Michelle Pfeiffer, are you kidding?" and I'm pretty much always right about that.
My sister wanted to be an actress, but she never made it. She does live in a trailer. She got halfway. She's an actress, she just never gets called to the set.
I grew up with a mother who, every time she saw something, would say, I'm going to look that up. And I've become that person - I've become the reference-book person.
Marilyn always dreamt of being an actress. She didn't, by the way, dream of being just a star. She dreamt of being an actress. And she had always lived somehow with that dream. And that is why, despite the fact that she became one of the most unusual and outstanding stars of all time, she herself was never satisfied. When she came to New York, she began to perceive the possibilities of really accomplishing her dream, of being an actress.
In the back of my head, I always thought it would be great to become an actress on a sitcom.