I feel like I've always been a weirdo. I always grew up with the sense of being a total outsider. I grew up so alienated from other people, and it never went away. When I'm around "normal" people I behave around them as if they are crazy, which makes me seem crazy.
I grew up in Oregon so I grew up around reservations, so I've always kind of had this knowledge. Not a tremendous amount of knowledge, but an outsider's knowledge of what reservation life was like.
I grew up in a pretty tough neighborhood. I grew up around drugs, alcohol, prostitution, I grew up around everything, and I think part of seeing that from really young has made me really steer very far away from it in all of its forms.
I mean, I've always felt like a lot of people's misconceptions of me have to do with how I grew up. I grew up poor, and I grew up rich. I think some people who have never met me have a misconception that when I was living with my father when he was successful, that I was somehow adversely affected by his success or the money he had and was making at the time.
I always, always liked children... I was very afraid of them before. Because I never really grew up, I mean, with a lot of little kids around. Even though I am from a kind of Italian family, I never really grew up with a lot of little kids around.
I've always been very attentive to detail. It's a characteristic that drives some people crazy. But on the other hand, when people around me are sloppy, that drives me crazy.
So many people grew up with challenges, as I did. There weren't always happy things happening to me or around me. But when you look at the core of goodness within yourself - at the optimism and hope - you realize it comes from the environment you grew up in.
I've always felt like a lot of people's misconceptions of me have to do with how I grew up. I grew up poor, and I grew up rich.
I grew up around whites, I grew up around Jews, I grew up around blacks, I grew up around Hispanics. We moved a lot.
I never really thought in terms of the concept of being a rock star - being around people like that just seemed like normal day-in-the-life stuff to me. Those were just the surroundings I grew up in.
I've always been interested in why do people behave in certain ways which are crazy from a normal point of view.
Of course there have been times when I've done crazy things. But I don't think I'm crazy. I just grew up in a crazy world.
I grew up with the motto of "they can't kill you and eat you," and I still think that's right. You sure as hell can't! When it comes to speaking about my body makes other people uncomfortable but it doesn't make me uncomfortable. It makes them think more about themselves than it makes them judge me. I've always had this body and had to live with it. I've never been a little thing. I've been smaller but I've never been small, even as a baby. I've never had that window into that kind of world where people only talk to you because you're conventionally sexy.
I grew up in a highly Hispanic neighborhood. It was very rare to find any race other than Mexicans. I feel very comfortable around Spanish speakers and people from Mexico and people who don't always feel comfortable living in the U.S. because they are in fear of being deported.
I grew up in the South where there's discrimination, and when I witnessed the judgment around me, I always thought someone needs to stick up for not just the LGBT community but any outsider, anybody that wasn't the mold in Texas.
I think I have a finely tuned sense of humor. I think just being around it and growing up in it... my dad and Mel Brooks and Norman Lear. These are the people I grew up around.
I'll be honest - my buddies are always going round saying, 'Put a shirt on. Jeez,' but I grew up on the beach. I grew up surfing. I grew up outdoors. I've sort of always liked being shirtless.