As a kid, there [on TV] were things I wasn't aware of - insecurities while transition from teen to adult. When I was around 17 and 18, I started seeing the benefits of this world.
I was around 1.60 m or so, and then when I was 17 or 18 I started growing.
When I was growing up in the '70s and '80s, by the time you were 16, you were kind of expected to be an adult. By the time we were 16 and able to drive, certainly by 17 or 18 and into college, you just had very little interaction with your parents.
My first reaction was that the adult world was fake and liars and basically worked for money and power. I didn't want to live in that world, so I spent a year, aged 17 to 18, trying to kill myself. I didn't want to live in a world of violence and injustice.
When I started really singing I was 17, 18 years old. I used to go around trying to be a singer in the Bronx. My knees would shake but I learned by doing.
I got the chance to do things that I dreamed of when I was a kid: I got to travel around the world; I had my own 'Goosebumps' attraction at Disney World; I've been on TV and had three TV series.
From the first time that I went over to China, I think I was around the age of 17, 18, and just going there and seeing that their technology being years ahead of ours in America, it sparked something with me back then.
I have this theory about us. When we started writing our own songs, we were 17 years old. When you're 17, you write songs for other 17-year-olds. We stopped growing musically when we were 17. We still write songs for 17-year-olds.
At 17, I dreamed of seeing the world. At 19, I had been around the world and back.
I've always been very aware of environment. When I was a kid I wanted to be a marine biologist until I realized I hated being underwater. I think a lot of that came from traveling and seeing the levels of waste produced by so many factories around the world.
I was 17 when I first started rapping and 18 before I started taking it seriously - when I really knew I could rap and have fans and be a trendsetter.
I remember going with my mom to a random garage sale as a kid and thinking what a cool treasure hunt that whole world was. Only to transition as an adult to think, 'What a gross place that really is.'
What was my dream when I was 18? My big decision when I was 18 was full keg or pony-size keg. I knew by about 16 or 17 that I was going to be an actor. That was based on the fact that there were not a lot of things that I could be really good at, or that I would enjoy enough to not run out of the building screaming.
I'd say a big transition as a kid was when I started to listen to Good Charlotte. They were like a rap-to-rock/punk group.
When you're doing something you're not used to, you kind of realize that you're still a kid: even though the whole world around you sees you as an adult and you're expected to act like an adult, you still haven't actually grown up.
I had a job when I was 10. I started living on my own when I was 17 or 18. I've earned my own money; I've traveled the world. What would I rebel against?
At any age, you are growing up at some level, but as far as maturing and growing up, a lot of that happens in your 20s: a lot of mistakes still to make and insecurities. But at around 27, I started to come into my own as a real adult.