I didn't want to be different. I longed to be everything grownups wanted, so they would love me. I followed all their rules, tried my best to please. But there was something about me that made them knit their eyebrows and frown. No one ever offered a name for what was wrong with me. That's what made me afraid it was really bad. I only came to recognize its melody through this constant refrain: 'Is that a boy or a girl?'
I was always storytelling, since I was a child. I remember myself at 10 years old telling stories to my sisters and brother. This is something I did through my adolescence and even through my twenties.
Everything that I've gone through since the end of 2010, from me finding out about my financial adviser stealing, mismanaging my money - that affected everything, from child support, mortgages, to me having to sell my properties, me being in and out of court trying to modify my child support. It's a lot to deal with at one time.
I also tried to leave myself alone enough to be surprised by the news. That's when it had its potency. If I approach everything with joy and hope and love, which is what we all do. Every day we get up we're hoping that today is going to be the day that's going to get you over the hump. I tried to do that as much as I could. So then when all the news happens you see what she is made out of.
It's cool to express myself, but I've had to learn that doing interviews isn't completely therapy - spilling everything about yourself isn't healthy all the time. But I've been through things that have made me a stronger person, and if I can help some people, I will.
My parents offered me my first camera for my birthday and I developed an exclusive passion for it over the years. Since I was not the most social kid on the block, the camera helped me to express myself, invent my own language - something like a secret garden. I decided early on I would not write in a diary but take silent photographs instead.
Being an only child and losing both my parents at an early age, I have found that the friends I have made over the years are the people who help me get through life, good times and bad.
My coach and my parents both had this relationship to what I was doing, which was allowing me to express myself with chess. And so I could love it. I had a passion for it. I was expressing myself through chess, and I was learning about myself through chess.
It's the failure of my debut film which made me an actor, which made me want to succeed in the industry. But that doesn't mean I regret whatever choices I've made over the years. No, not even 'Kaiyethum Doorathu!'
I think it started since I was born, I always had a need to express myself, you know, as a human being, and I found that it felt right when I expressed myself through art, dance, through acting, so it kind of happened naturally.
As a child I was not allowed to express my feelings, so I had to go back through therapy and express the child's pain.
I was a very creative child. I played the saxophone and piano, and I was always writing poetry and stories, or drawing in my notebook. I just tried to express myself through as many creative outlets as possible. And in high school, I started to get really into photography and videography and would spend hours working on it.
Acting is just another way to express myself as an artist. I realized if you're an artist, you're an artist and you can express that through music, through painting, through photography, through acting - this is just another way for me to express myself.
I'll be 40 this year, so 'Can We Talk' is really not me anymore. Now I have the freedom to express myself through my music and write about my likes, my dislikes, and my passions. There's no greater feeling than being able to express myself.
Art was a way for me to express myself and for me to also escape because it was tough growing up as a child. We didn't have a lot of money. I was always creating. I was writing stories. I was doing comic books. I made my own universe.
I launched my website when many in my fraternity had not even heard of the concept. Then I tried my hand at make-up business which has made life simpler for actors.