I studied music at school and played the recorder. Later in life music was a great way of supplementing my income because I was paid really badly as a young chef. Luckily an old friend - we did music at school together - and I formed a duo, The Calypso Beat, which later became the Calypso Twins.
The first time I saw Dr. Shriram Lagoo was way back in school. I did not interact with him. It was only after I completed my training at the National School of Drama in Delhi and came back to Pune that we had our first exchange. I participated in a play, and he sent me a message to call him.
My father actually moved out from Chicago just so he could play tennis 365 days a year, so it was - it was a place we played every day. We played before school. We played after school. We woke up. We played tennis. We brushed our teeth in that order.
When I was growing up, in L.A., I went to these schools, Fairfax High School, Bancroft Junior High School, and they had great music departments. I always played in the orchestra, the jazz band, the marching band.
At nine or ten, I was playing guitar in music class in my elementary school in Jackson, Michigan. They had a guitar class, and I played with ten of my classmates, and we did a little guitar orchestra for a school music.
I got to perform the [Jaques] Ibert Concertino Da Camera with a brilliant pianist at school named Chunga. I got to perform the [Alexander] Glazunov Concerto in senior year with our school orchestra and the Jewish Grossman orchestra. I won a scholarship from the Goldman band to perform the [Paul] Creston Concerto. Which I never played with them, but they still gave me the money.
I went to this massive co-ed school for the first time when I was 16. Everyone there had been together since elementary school, and I found it quite difficult, especially when I'd never stepped into a classroom with boys. So I started looking out in the community for a social outlet. I started getting involved in student films and community theater. Acting began as a hobby.
When budget cuts happen - which has been happening a lot in this country - after-school athletics and after-school music are some of the first things to go.
I was definitely a thespian of sorts in elementary school. I went to a real small private school and every year I participated in the talent shows and the school plays, all of 'em.
I was definitely a thespian of sorts in elementary school. I went to a real small private school, and every year, I participated in the talent shows and the school plays - all of 'em.
In middle school, I played quarterback. I was at a tiny school, so you played offense and defense - I played linebacker, and in high school I stopped playing around my sophomore year because of my acting stuff.
We played soccer a lot with our friends and at school. We weren't on an official team or anything, but we'd definitely be up for it in gym or in after-school pickup games where we live.
The music teacher thought I sang like a goat. It was kind of devastating. A few months after that, I participated in a music contest and won. I took my little trophy to school and rubbed it in his nose. I said to him, "What do you say now?"
I first played the Royal Albert Hall when I was 14. I was a violinist with the Birmingham Schools Concert Orchestra, and we travelled down from the Midlands for the last night of the School Proms. We played some pieces from the Harry Potter films, and the violin parts were really hard.
I've played rugby at school a bit. I didn't play football at school; I played football after school.
Then when I was in grammar school I played the clarinet, and then, after clarinet I played the flute in college orchestra - besides singing in the college chorus and things like that.