It is good to have healthy competition and be inspired by others, as all this helps you take up challenging roles. There are people who come from different backgrounds in this industry. In my case, my mom runs a play school, and Dad is into business. When I go home, conversation revolves around that and lot more topics other than cinema.
Right now, it hasn't affected my music other than the fact that I don't have time to write any of it. That's no different from when I first started and I lived at home. I would play the guitar in the afternoon and then my mom or my dad would come home and I'd have to quit.
Acting is a job you can learn a lot in. You get to play lots of different characters with different professions and different backgrounds; they come from different places than you do, so it's really fun when you're immersing yourself in that world of that person to learn about how other people's lives are.
My humanitarian work evolved from being with my family. My mom, my dad, they really set a great example for giving back. My mom was a nurse, my dad was a school teacher. But my mom did a lot of things for geriatrics and elderly people. She would do home visits for free.
I grew up with a lot of spirituality. It wasn't necessarily organized religion, because my mom was Jewish and my dad was Muslim. I went to Catholic school. There was a lot of conversation about comparative religions.
Certain roles are more challenging than others, but I haven't come across one yet that I can't tackle.
The kids can see that there are more parts to me than just being their mom; I wear a couple of different hats and have other roles to play.
Unlike in school, in life you don't have to come up with all the right answers. You can ask the people around you for help - or even ask them to do the things you don't do well. In other words, there is almost no reason not to succeed if you take the attitude of 1) total flexibility - good answers can come from anyone or anywhere (and in fact, as I have mentioned, there are far more good answers 'out there' than there are in you) and 2) total accountability: regardless of where the good answers come from, it's your job to find them.
When people get together that come from different musical backgrounds, a lot of times there's is a good ... it's very enjoyable to say somebody, let me turn you on to some things, and the other person does the same thing. And they play you stuff that maybe you weren't that familiar with and likewise.
And I'm completely into the idea of being a dad. If the opportunity arises for us to switch roles and let Helen get back into competition, then yes I'd take on the role of a stay-at-home dad. I'd be all over it.
Well there's nobody who has a more supportive husband than I do, and he has a business that he runs, and it's his own business, so he has work to do, my kids have school to do, I mean, people have - there are other things in life besides politics.
We come from different backgrounds. Some people grow up with money in their pocket, or they have a certain last name; others have nothing. But it comes down to work ethic. That's where we all play on the same playing field.
A lot of times, in film and TV, they just want you to play yourself. But, when you're someone who's more of a character actor, you get to experience what it feels like to play a bunch of different kinds of people. I find it more invigorating than challenging. I definitely trust the writers to give me the material that I will take and turn into the person that I'm playing.
I've always said the thing that has helped me be the best actor I could be are my real life experiences, which have come in the form of my school experiences: meeting different people, learning different things, immersing myself in different topics and social situations, and sort of challenging myself to grow emotionally, intellectually.
The only thing I could be better at is to be around more. Other than that, I'm a great dad. I come to the soccer games and teach her stuff, go over her homework with her every night; we stay on the phone. I try to be as good as a dad as I can be.
I was influenced by a lot of comedy growing up, I had good parents. They were funny, too. My mom was hilarious; my dad was hilarious. I guess being at home around the environment was just a good stage to get started.
Come Christmas Eve, we usually go to my mom and dad's. Everybody brings one gift and then we play that game when we all steal it from each other. Some are really cool, others are useful and some are a bit out there.