A Quote by Michael Gross

At first, 'Family Ties' seemed to just be a wonderful project of its time. These were the Reagan years, the new conservatism. Alex P. Keaton quickly became the Fonzie of the '80s, so it seemed very much a product of its time. But I soon began to realize that it went far beyond that. These great family shows transcend whatever time they are in.
'Family Ties,' to me, was strictly '80s. It was from the beginning of the '80s until the end of the '80s, and it was very specific to that time. Ronald Reagan was president.
In terms of what happened over that hiatus that I took, I just rested. I spent that time with my family, during their really formative years, and enjoyed that, and I messed with pills and new medications that help me to deal with dyskinesia and some other things I was struggling with, that I don't have as much now because of medication to counter the side effects. So, it just seemed like the right time to do it.
My father died when I was 9 years old. The miserable condition of my family at that time is beyond description. My family, solitary and without influence, became at once the target of much insult and abuse.
It just seemed to me to be a great story, set back in its time but something that seemed to have relevance for our time. Now that the film is coming out, it looks like we're back in another time where repression of expression is all the rage.
Then, at age 20, I discovered theater sort of by accident. Quite quickly, theater became more important to me than music. I began to realize that maybe my talents as a musician were quite limited, or had a ceiling to them, whereas acting seemed to sort of stretch before me. I got very passionate about it very quickly.
The first time that I came to New York to work properly was the mid-'80s, but I was doing eight shows a week. You have no life. Going to a punk rock club - or whatever the music was at that time - would not have been on my agenda.
My biggest project right now is trying to be a really great mom and learning how to balance family and career. I'm just trying to spend as much time with my family as I can.
I just became a stronger agnostic, and then I started to realize that everyone who was saying they were agnostic really hadn't thought about it that much. Still, I went with agnosticism for a long, long time because I just hated to say I was an atheist -- being an atheist seemed so rigid. But the more I became comfortable with the word, and the more I read, it started to stick.
I had a hard time at Chelsea mainly because I was injured much of the time. Every time I recovered from one injury I seemed to get a new one and it set me back again.
I think of my shows as family reunions. I give 100% every time. I just do. It's a huge therapeutic release. Also I love my touring family. And I love my audiences very much.
My family came to Australia on the First Fleet. My family’s been in that country for a long time, over 100 years. If your family’s lived in Australia for a long time, everyone has a little bit of [Aborigine blood]. I know my family does because we have an eye condition that only Aboriginal people have.
The first Superman film took up a huge chunk of our lives, but it was a wonderful time for us. We were young, my daughter was little, we were filming in London for a year, so we became like a close family.
Housing in New York seemed to fit Norman Lear. In addition, his shows confronted all kinds of social issues - racial separation and prejudice being foremost among them. The Evans of Good Times were the first black family to be the focus of a primetime American TV show. A lot of the people we came across in filming were familiar with the role Norman played in catalyzing important national conversations about race. They seemed grateful to him for trying to move the needle.
All My Children,' to me, was like a family... When I moved to New York I didn't know anyone, so these people became, like, my only friends and family for a long time 'cause we're working all the time.
The early 2000s for me were a very emotional time, politically. I'd been through Reagan and been through first Bush and Clinton, and it's not like I had an easy time through those years. But I just thought it was particularly rough. I have to say the World Trade Center attack was very weird for me. The events that followed were worse. It was a really long swath of time.
My father was an urchin that lived in Hell's Kitchen. He was part of a family of nine. I mean, there were times that were better and worse, but mostly, by the time we got to L.A., they'd lost whatever they had. And it was a sad time. And both he and I became truck drivers for different companies.
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