When I was growing up in Ossining, N.Y., playing pool with the guys, the thought that any one of us might become an actor was as far-fetched as being knighted by the queen of England.
When I was a kid, I loved Elvis, and Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. But I had no connection to Hollywood - and being a movie star was such a far-fetched idea, growing up in Hawaii.
As a biracial girl growing up in England, I'd never really seen any historical characters who looked like me depicted on film before that weren't being brutalized or playing slaves.
I think guys, because we share a history growing up of being stereotyped, because there are fewer of us in the dance world, that contributes early on to a bond among us. A lot of us share stories of being harassed or teased growing up - there's a certain deep camaraderie that's formed through that shared struggle.
If you were brought up in the '40s, a kid in Ossining, New York, hanging out at the poolroom and stealing, how can you think, 'Here I am in Ossining. I, too, can be a movie star!'
After Bottle Rocket, I started getting acting work. People started offering me roles in movies. It wasn't something that I thought about as a kid growing up in Texas. Actually, maybe I would have thought of it as a possibility, but it seemed so crazily far-fetched to think that you could work in movies that I really didn't ever quite imagine it. It was just lucky.
We start off wearing frilly shirts and britches and being good guys and the heroes. And then as time goes on, every English actor ends up playing bad guys. That's what we do.
Part of what's cool about being an actor or being in this industry, frankly, is to be able to travel to distant lands. That's part of the deal. I always thought when I was growing up, "I wanna be an actor and go see the world.'
We might, either of us, be Queen of England and yet we'll always be nothing to our family.
I love going for a swim. Growing up in England, anywhere with a pool seems like the height of glamour to me.
While growing up, I always wanted to see myself on the big screen - more so because there were no laptops then, and viewing on mobile was a far-fetched dream.
Growing up in a bluegrass or acoustic-oriented world, the musicians become so focused on performance, as far as playing. We tend to overanalyze the notes, so you're always trying to sharpen everything up.
I never thought I would become an actor. When I started out, I never thought I would come so far. Acting was not my passion. When I experienced the highs of being an actor, I started liking it, and it gradually became my passion.
I always get a little bit pissed off when stand-up comedy is not recognised as being as good a craft as being an actor. We give Oscars to people and it's like, 'Aw, this person is the greatest person on earth', but being an actor is pretty easy in comparison to stand-up comedy. It's no surprise that several stand-up comics have gone on to become great actors. I don't know any great actors that have gone on to become great stand-up comics.
I'm not one to bow under immense pressure. I know how to deal with it. As a youth player growing up and playing for England, you deal with it then and get used to it. You just carry on into the bigger stages, and it has become natural to me.
I was a swimmer growing up, which meant being in the pool at 5 a.m. You get used to it. You get up at 4:15 a.m.; my parents, who were amazing, they were up at 4:15 a.m. or earlier to drop me off at the pool and then go to work. I eventually stopped doing that, but the pattern remained. I like getting up really early. It feels like my time of day.
Most normal boys, as they're growing up, they - in order to become attractive, they might, you know, get good at sports or join a rock band or develop good social skills, and for some reason, I thought that drawing comic books might be my route.