If I had not been dyslexic, I wouldn't have needed sports. I would have been like every other kid. Instead, I found my one thing, and I was never going to let go of it. That little dyslexic kid is always in the back of your head.
That said, being dyslexic, I wasn't a great reader when I was kid.
If you're dyslexic I think it's very important to know that you can do anything you want and it's not simply because you're dyslexic that you should be shoved on the side.
I was dyslexic - still am dyslexic - and as child, I found things very difficult. I think my father realised that in acting and stuff I could express myself.
I'm very grateful to being dyslexic and I owe my career to being dyslexic.
My greatest gift in life was being dyslexic. It made me special. It made me different. If I had not been dyslexic, I wouldn't have needed sports.
I didn't think anything I wrote was going to get published. I'm a dyslexic kid who had tutors through college. But I had a very strong impulse to write.
Now, where does my comedy come from, like, as a human being? Yeah, when I was a kid I was dyslexic and had to go to special-ed every day and felt stupid about that and got very witty to defend myself.
I was so dyslexic as a kid, and still am, and music was such a great form of escape to me. At school I'd keep my head down and try not to get beat up, and then I'd get home and music would be like a drug to me.
As a kid, I thought of myself as stupid because I needed remedial help. It was not until much later that I figured out that I was dyslexic and that my trouble with spelling and sounding out words did not mean I was stupid, but early impressions stuck with me and colored my world for a time.
It caused more problems as a young kid, because the simple process of perceiving words on a piece of paper was hard for me. Many people think dyslexic people see things backwards. They don't see things backwards.
We named all our children Kid. Well, they have different first names, like Hey Kid, You Kid, Dumb Kid . . .
I'm dyslexic.
I was always the new kid in school, I'm the kid from a broken family, I'm the kid who had no dad showing up at the father-son stuff, I'm the kid that was using food stamps at the grocery store.
A kid might help another kid who fell into a river, and a kid might help another kid search for a lost baseball, but there isn't a kid I've met who will help another kid out of a humiliating situation. We just aren't built that way.