I think, looking back, there was a lot of fear of success in me. When you are successful, you have to keep it up... it requires you to be responsible, and I had been pretty irresponsible.
I've always been very impatient. At age 10 I frankly found life boring, and I can remember age 9 having the awful thought, as it seems now looking back on it, A war! That should liven things up a bit!
Looking back, I think we were all quite mature, surprisingly responsible. In earlier wars, boys of our age had just gone off to raise hell or enlist or both, but we stayed dutifully at our desks doing tomorrow's homework.
I had injuries - even when I was younger, I had problems with my back. I had to grow up very fast.
I didn't realise how devastating my behavior could be - looking back, I'm very embarrassed. I just buckled under the anxiety.
Dad was involved in a lot of crime and the police were regularly coming to our door looking for him. From the age of three he always made sure I had a football and he'd make me play with much bigger kids. But he'd tell them, 'Kick him and if he moans he'll come in.' So I got taught to grow up very quickly.
I live a very different life now, with incredible privileges, but looking back I realise that growing up in Russia gave me tools that other people don't necessarily have - such as the will to push that bit further, to make things happen, to succeed.
I never thought I was particularly good looking. But when I see old photographs, I realise that I was. I do wish I had known that at the time because beauty is power. I didn't realise how lucky I was to be young, beautiful and in Hollywood. It didn't hit me. Every day I woke up, went to the film studio and just got on with it.
I probably wouldn't be a songwriter if I didn't grow up the way I did. It was difficult and it was at times very scary to grow up in a household so unsettled and at times very violent. But, it also, I guess it earned me a sort of wisdom at a young age that's served me well.
It was a great place to grow up. There were always kids around in our neighborhood. We had a basketball hoop in the back of our house, a little front yard where you could get touch football games going. I know you think of it as a big city, but it was fun for me to grow up in New Orleans. I remember it as a very normal childhood.
I'm totally open to changing my beliefs. I could grow up to be a total communist. I could grow up to be a Neocon. I'm looking to have my views challenged. I'm looking to be corrected.
I felt quite frankly having been raised during the depression and looking back at the roaring twenties, the jazz age, which was a very magic timer in my mind because it was something that I had missed.
It's shocking when you start to grow up and realise that your parents had a life before you! But why would you? Sometimes you don't really have a need to.
By age seven, I used to comb my hair for performances, just pull my hair up into a bun. Granted, it wasn't a very intricate hairstyle. Still, to be that responsible and disciplined at age seven is unusual.
I think most models fear growing old, but from a tender age I had always chosen to play someone grown up. I am slowly but surely catching up with the people that I have spent the last decade and a half trying to portray.
I had to believe in myself from quite a young age. And I had to grow up pretty early.