My parents were both in show business. My father was an actor, my mom an actress, and both singers, dancers and actors. They met in Los Angeles doing a play together and so I grew up in a show biz family.
I grew up listening to show tunes in the back of the car.
Both my parents were professional actors, so I grew up in a household that had no real financial stability.
After my parents' divorce in the early seventies, I grew up with my mother, who wasn't super educated herself. But there were a lot of kids from the subcontinent in the neighbourhood, many of whom were academic achievers. So my sister and I grew up around them, and both of us did well in school.
My parents were 30 years older than I was, and my parents had my brother and I ten years apart. My parents grew up in segregation, and they both lived in all-black neighborhoods and grew up with large black families. I didn't have any of that, and I didn't understand feeling so differently and being treated so differently.
I grew up in a very musical household. My brother had KISS and Van Halen records, but my parents loved country and show tunes, so I had all of those records when a kid. I pretty much knew exactly what I was going to do at a young age. I loved album covers, I loved listening to a record and staring at the art while listening to it. When I got older and discovered paining, drawing and PhotoShop, I was able to do both simultaneously; I enjoy making both.
My parents were both very musically inclined, they were both songwriters and musicians, so we grew up in the house singing music together, and R&B had a huge strong arm in the foundation of my career.
Both my parents were immigrants, as were many of their friends, the parents of the children with whom I grew up. Of course I respect and admire immigrants and their undeniable contributions to America, as we all should.
I grew up in a Navy family, and like most service families, we traveled a lot and moved a lot. I grew up on both coasts and in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., in Rockville, Maryland, and have had a great time doing it.
I think what shaped me was I had two parents who were scientists, and especially, they were great readers. They had both grown up in sort of rural parts of the South and were oddballs where they grew up. They were budding intellectuals.
I grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, with my parents and sisters, but my family would drive every weekend to Hammonton, where both my grandparents lived and where my parents were raised.
I love actors, both my parents were actors, and the work with actors is the most enjoyable part of making a film. It's important that they feel protected and are confident they won't be betrayed. When you create that atmosphere of trust, it's in the bag - the actors will do everything to satisfy you.
I did a lot of musical theater when I was younger, and I really hope to get back there someday. I miss singing a lot. I listen to Broadway show tunes in my car and sing along to them.
I grew up in a funeral home. Both my parents were morticians.
Where I grew up in St. Louis, Saturday was country music day on television. We'd watch the Bill Anderson show, the Willie Nelson show, the Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner show, and always the Grand Ole Opry. My parents were fans of that music, and my friend's parents would pull the TV out and watch those shows on the porch.
Whatever talent I had, I'm sure it helped that my parents were in the business and that I grew up around actors, comedians and directors.