I was really creative. I started to dance very young. I loved to dance. I begged my mother to put me into dance classes, and finally, in third grade, she did. Tap and jazz, but not ballet.
As I got older, I started to do it more and more, and I wanted to learn all of the different types. I grew up doing modern, so I wanted to learn ballet, tap, jazz, and African - just everything.
I wanted to be a dancer from when I was about nine or something like that and started ballet. I used to really like it and got into it and did it full time for a couple of years. I did a lot of ballet but I traded that in for acting when I was about 15.
I started playing violin because I was fascinated by how violin players could play so fast. I would buy their cassettes, and learn different concertos, but then I started rounding out my collection. My dad was a big jazz fan, so I just started hearing a lot more soul music. I loved Little Stevie Wonder, and I got really into him as a singer and a writer as I got older.
My brother became so enamored with that film [West Side Story], that he started taking tap-dancing lessons, and I followed him and started tap dancing, and my mother and father started tap dancing - I was in a class with my family, tap dancing!
I started with ballet and then my cousin Sarah introduced me to her tap teachers.
Suddenly, I realized how tough trying to structure a story like this is. It was a lot of work. The one big advantage that we had was that we had eight scripts written before we started shooting, or even started casting. We had a really good opportunity to look at it and figure out where we were going to go and how to do it. Once we got a cast, which I love, then we started doing some revisions to make sure that they fit into it.
I didn't get into Tupac [Shakur] until a little later, once I started understanding rap and people's stories. Eminem was the first rapper that I actually started dissecting the lyrics, and once I got attached to his stories, then I started listening to Dr. Dre, then Snoop 'cause they were all under one camp.
The only reason I started swimming was for water safety. Then, once I started falling in love with sports, I got more comfortable with it.
We went out for six weeks a year. We first started in Mexico and we did that for so many years that we finally said we've got to explore and start going globally. And then we started going all over the world.
When I was 12, I was doing competitive jazz, tap and ballet in Michigan. The studio put the best dancers together, and I joined that. We always did really, really well in local competitions.
I did ballet, jazz and flamenco from when I was five years old. And my professional career started with dancing in musicals.
I auditioned for this agency. I got an advertisement first, and then something else, which I got fired from. It was soul-destroying. And then the next thing I got, I thought was going to be my big break, and they cut the role. It was only the year that I started auditioning for 'Star Wars' when I really started getting roles.
I got into one of the Scottish classical styles called piobaireachd, which is a very old music that started around the 1700s or something. I really got into this music. After that, I started to compose bagpipe music in my notations. Then I started building bagpipes by myself, and then I started to perform with the instrument myself in the 1980s.
I've been dancing my entire life. Jazz, hip hop, ballet. And then there's tap dancing. I love to tap.
I got started acting by going to auditions that my mom found in the entertainment section of our local news paper. Then, I got a manager and started going out on more auditions.