I always managed to get in trouble, like every kid. But I had to learn a lot of hard lessons on my own, without parents who would nurture me and guard me through that part of life, at a very young age.
Jason and the Argonauts' is the very first movie that I ever remember watching. My parents were living in New York and I was a very young kid. And I remember being in front of my TV all alone watching skeletons fighting with swords. For me it was magic.
My childhood, I wouldn't say it was bad. It helped me grow up. I stayed out of trouble. My parents taught me what's wrong and right, and knowing that I had a little brother following me, I had to make sure I was doing the right thing so he knows what's right, too. I was in the house nine days out of 10. There wasn't nothing good outside for me.
My parents got divorced when I was really young and I was a very hyperactive kid, so both parents independently would play Enya at the house to calm me down and soothe me as a kid.
My parents made reading fun for me as a kid and that's stayed with me my whole life.
Growing up, I stayed in a child's place. My father was murdered when I was 20. I was a model and never had a real job and my parents took care of me.
I was blessed throughout my entire career. I had people rooting for me. It started with my parents, but it extended to almost every teacher that I had. Even when I was a young lawyer, there were other women and men in the firm who took me under their wing.
My father took me to a lot of sports events as a child, and our TV stayed on ESPN.
A prodigy to me is someone that is enormously gifted at a young age - to the point that people can't deny it. I think when you are a young kid and you are a prodigy, other parents, when their child is on your team, they aren't even mad that their kid isn't getting the shine because that other kid is special.
I remember being told by my parents when I was 4 that I couldn't go to an amusement park advertised on TV because colored kids weren't allowed there. That was a bit of a shock and really stayed with me over the years. That was how I first learned about racial segregation. Fortunately, I took it as a challenge, early on, and it motivated me. You never know how a child might respond to discrimination. It goes both ways. Some kids become embittered.
When I was six years old, my parents took me to this farmers' market with a petting zoo. They put me on a pony and, for some reason, it took off at a run and they had to chase it down. They tell me it was kind of traumatic.
I'm lucky that I was born to these parents. I'm lucky that my dad wanted to be around me, that he took me to all these National League cities by the time I was 12.
Just watching TV as a kid, for a long time I thought, as a young kid, obviously when I was, like, 4 or 5, I thought that people lived in the television.
When I was a kid, I had two nightmares: one was nuclear war, and the other was that my parents would get a divorce; and when I was twenty, they split up, and I just felt like I needed to confront all those things that scared me as a kid - entering young adulthood and trying to have relationships.
My family are very supportive and always have been. They weren't the kind of parents that pushed me into it. I know a lot of parents of kid actors I've worked with have pressured them into acting, but my parents are different. I'm really lucky to have them because they let me make my own decisions.
I remember watching 'The Carol Burnett Show' with my parents as a kid. All those weird outfits she wore, like turtlenecks and long skirts, really stayed in my head.