I'm very much half-American - my mom is American. I grew up in Australia until I was 16, then I finished high school over here because I got into this performing arts high school.
We're definitely a hodgepodge of influences. Mine, most heavily, would be Southern rock - the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and stuff like that. Hillary is more from the country side - her mom is Linda Davis, a country singer. Dave, he's a big fan ...
My first day of high school, I wore brown boys' corduroys that my mom had sewn Sesame Street elastic into - they were my coolest pants - and a lime green Patagonia fleece that my mom found at Goodwill. I loved fleece.
Mom and sister played piano growing up; my grandma still plays piano in church. They always beat me over the head trying to get me to play piano, but I was more interested in riding dirt bikes and playing in the mud.
My mom's collard greens. No one else in the world can make them like hers. I'm not just saying that because she's my mom. She's got some Mississippi secret. I could seriously eat them every day.
When I was little, my mom tells me, I used to say things like, 'Mom do you hear the string section? Do you hear the string section?' And she would look at me and say, 'No honey, I don't know what you're talking about.'
When I was growing up in New Jersey, my mom would regularly take my sister and I into the city to see shows. I have many fond memories of standing in the half-price ticket line in Times Square and going to matinees.
Billy Brown: You adore me, you love me, you cherish me, Jesus Christ you can't live without me
Billy Brown: And if I find out you go near my locker, I swear to God I'll give you a karate chop right in the head.
Dr. Emmett Brown: Don't worry. As long as you hit that wire with the connecting hook at precisely 88 miles per hour, the instant the lightning strikes the tower... everything will be fine.
I always use my 'Holy Trinity' which is salt, olive oil and bacon. My motto is, 'bacon always makes it better.' I try to use bacon and pork products whenever it can.
My mother's eyes were large and brown, like my son's, but unlike Sam's, they were always frantic, like a hummingbird who can't quite find the flower but keeps jabbing around.
I went to Brunel University and very much wanted to go on to do a PhD in management, but then my acting career started to take off. In those days when you switched on the box there were hardly any brown or black faces.
My biggest challenge is cooking traditional French dishes, which usually require very specific techniques and methods. That's just not my style... I cook from the soul.
Plus the public's attention span is so short right now, if a skater doesn't strike while the iron is hot... well it's not like people will forget you, but they just won't care anymore.
So the programs all start to all look the same. I watched one free skating competition, and I thought I was watching a short program. Everyone was doing exactly the same elements.
The miracle of the light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slow-moving below, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades of Florida. It is a river of grass.
Thinking back to boyhood days, I remember the bright sun on Harlem streets, the easy rhythms of black and brown bodies, the sounds of children streaming in and out of red brick tenements.
Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors - it's how you combine them that sets you apart.
When you meet someone, ask about what hobby they have, not what they do. People always ask me about cooking, but I prefer to talk about tennis or boxing.
When I graduated from Brown after majoring in women's studies, I made my first PBS documentary, 'Women of Substance.' My first feature documentary was called 'American Hollow,' which I did for HBO and was at the Sundance Film Festival.
