My mom had a job, and she also took care of us, and she also took care of Dad - I always saw her pulling triple duty, doing more than I ever felt like she needed to. I made a promise to myself that it would be more of a team effort in my family somed...
All three of my parents - I also had a stepmother - were teachers, and my dad taught high school, and as he always reminded me when I was going to spend some money on something, 'Your mother and I, in the Depression, had to decide whether to spend a ...
But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the cri...
We sang a lot of church music. We were very active Baptists. Supposedly, I started singing when I was being given a bath - at 14 months or something like that. My mother and dad both swore that was true, but I'm sure it wasn't very good... We always ...
I moved frequently because my dad was in the army, so I was always new in school. I think if you've ever done that, you know what it means to not matter in a room. I think it's a good experience for everyone to have, to feel like they're not noticed,...
I grew up in Chicago, so I've always been a Bears fan. Dad used to take me to Bears games and Cubs games. My brother used to ride me over to Lake Forest College on his Honda Supersport and we'd watch the Bears practice. I remember those guys out ther...
I've always had a burning desire to help people and make a difference in the world. I didn't know how I could do that in modelling when it can be such a fake world. But my dad told me I could make a difference by being true to myself and teaching peo...
I watch political shows for a number of weeks in a row, and all I see are guys arguing with each other over issues I have no idea about. My brother, he loves war-torn places. My dad would always read the paper and tell me I should watch CNN, but I us...
My father was a low-budget monster movie maker, so he made classics like 'The Crater Lake Monster.' There were always creatures around. And my dad was a huge fan of Ray Harryhausen. One of our neighbors, who went on to win several Academy Awards, was...
Theatre has been a part of my life since before I can remember - my dad is also an actor and a director and a storyteller who lives and works in the Twin Cities; my mom is a nurse practitioner, but she also grew up doing theatre - so, it has always b...
Fear seems to have many causes. Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, and so on, but ultimately all fear is the ego's fear of death, of annihilation. To the ego, death is always just around the corner. In this mind-identified state, fear...
I'm an atheist, I always thought, 'This is it.' If there is going to be a heaven, it should be on earth. I feel much happier than most people. I'm fairly stoic about death, but I'm not keen on dying if it's going to be long and protracted. I don't ha...
I like starting off the new year fresh. I'm excited to see how 2013 turns out. Maybe because I'm an actress and I am always on a diet and fitness program, but my New Year's resolution is to let myself be nice to myself about my body.
I always had a sense that I would fall in love with Tokyo. In retrospect I guess it's not that surprising. I was of the generation that had grown up in the '80s when Japan was ascendant (born aloft by a bubble whose burst crippled its economy for dec...
By learning about my body and making small, subtle changes, I find out what I enjoy and what is effective. I'm always finessing: adjusting my diet and my workouts. You have to figure out which exercises are fun and interesting and stimulate your brai...
I don't diet, I don't do fads, I've just decided to not eat carbs. So no more bread and pasta for the month. I can't live without chocolate, though. I've always got a bar in my handbag. It has to be 72%. Any less and it's too sweet, any more and it's...
Sports are the ultimate secular religion. Instead of being worried about whether your kids will be okay or how your job is going, you have your team, and you can focus all of your angst and your hopes and dreams on your team. I am in no way saying it...
I don't think if you asked any of my childhood friends they would say that I had a weird childhood; they might say there weren't a lot of regular rules, the conversations in the house were always very open, dreams were a great thing to talk about, ev...
I have always been fascinated by the way things work and how they came to take the form that they did. Writing about these things satisfies my curiosity about the made world while at the same time giving me an opportunity to design a new explanation ...
In fashion design, you can divide people into two groups. You have people who come with an aesthetic that is there forever, even if it evolves. Then you have people I call 'jumpers.' One season it can be this; the next season it's completely somethin...
My grandmother always used to wear this English perfume called Tuberose and then she died and then I dated this girl who wore the same thing. Every time I hung out with her, I could only think of my recently deceased grandmother. So sometimes a signa...
