I did this Super-8 film at art school called Tissues, this black comedy about a family whose father has been arrested for child molestation. I was absolutely thrilled by every inch of it, and would throw my projector in the back of my car and show it to anybody who would watch it.
I did this Super-8 film at art school called 'Tissues,' this black comedy about a family whose father has been arrested for child molestation. I was absolutely thrilled by every inch of it, and would throw my projector in the back of my car and show it to anybody who would watch it.
I constantly write about my safety walking to and from school, and then I would come home at night, and I would cut on the TV, and I would watch a show like 'The Wonder Years,' or I would watch, you know, some other show like 'Family Ties.'
Just classic immigrant story - I mean, child of immigrant story - did not grow up with cable and so felt constantly like I was being spoken to in a foreign language when I would go to school. And people would be like, did you watch this? Did you watch that? I'd be like, no, but I did watch 'SNL.'
I was super-obsessed with cover videos. When I was, like, 10, I would come home from school and watch them from 4 o'clock until 8 o'clock every night. I was so intrigued that people took these super-popular songs and did them their own way.
'Turtles' was by far my favourite TV show when I was growing up. It would be the show that I would wanna watch more than anything. We'd record it on the big VHS tapes, and I'd watch it before school, after school, on the weekend, wear the costume, have all the weapons.
I felt like it was a courageous show [Black-ish] from the beginning. We are a black family - we're not a family that happens to be black. But the show is not even about us being black. The show is about us being a family. That is groundbreaking - on TV, the black characters either happen to be black or they're the "black character," where everything they say is about being black. I think that's the genius.
I had to take over the reins of the company at a time when I did not know a thing about the business. The producers who were committed to work with my father wanted to back out because they felt I would not be able to sell their film's music the way my father did.
I was sent to boarding school - a grim place. The only good thing the headmaster did for us was every Sunday evening in the winter he would show us films in the chapel. He couldn't afford a sound projector, so we saw silent films, which you could then still rent from photographic shops.
One of the first TV shows that I did was this prank show. And we did a prank where we took a Michael Jackson impersonator and I played his publisher.I was just really good at my job.We were just about to go onto the field to throw out the first pitch just two weeks after 9\11. It was a huge security breach, and we made a lot of cops look really dumb. Producers of the show thought it would be really funny and I didn't think about it because I was a young dumb comedian. So I got arrested and went to jail in the Bronx, and now I can never go back to Yankee Stadium.
I keep going back to foundation, heritage cooking techniques from my family in Naples and Abruzzi. There are a lot of traditional dishes from those regions that I want to educate my kids' palates about, to pass down that heritage and that lineage. I think my mom would have been pleasantly surprised and absolutely thrilled to have seen all the cookbooks and all the restaurants and all the television I've done.
I wanted to do a show about a family that is absolutely black. Because as Du Bois has shown, we do have to live a double consciousness every day in the world. We have to walk our path and walk the mainstream path, and there's never really been a show that's talked about what that's like.
My favorite show of my father Aaron Spelling is probably a show that was his favorite and that was a show called Family. He was the most proud of that show because, you know, my dad kind of got a bad wrap, I think. A lot of times people would say oh he just makes jiggle TV and it's all for entertainment purposes. But he did some really amazing shows as well that he was really proud of, that people kind overlooked. And Family was one of them.
You know how you toilet paper and egg somebody's house? I did it, right? But I did it back-to-back nights, Saturday and Sunday. They called the police. Good thing nobody got arrested but that was something embarrassing and stupid. Why would you do the same house twice? It was ridiculous.
Why would I, in a million years, want to do anything even remotely having to do with child molestation on a children's show? See, I take having a kids' show real seriously. I think it's an enormous responsibility.
I have three kids. Now they're all grown up, but when they were little, every time I would start a new project, they would say, 'So dad, are you making a movie we can watch or one we cannot watch?' That's the kind of stuff they would ask. People around me - family and friends - usually know when to watch and when not to watch.
I felt like an ugly duckling back in school. I was a complete tomboy with short hair. Never in my dreams did I imagine that I would walk the ramp with 6-inch heels. My friends can't believe that I'm an actor, because I was such an introvert in school.