I spent nearly two decades as a social worker and an educator with kids. So, my whole life has been about helping middle-class families. So it's just kind of a hollow argument to say I'm not a family person.
Luckily, I was raised by a kind of gypsy family, which is why I always get along better with people who worked in circuses than with kids of other actors. My mom was so carefree with us in a beautiful way. We were used to sleeping anywhere.
The kids like to get pictures of me for their parents. They know how proud I am of them-they have a lot more to worry about than my stardom. They are trying to make good choices for their own lives, but this gives them a little fun. They are part of ...
When you don't have kids and you're in a Catholic family - one of my sisters had 10 children in 11 years - she's part rabbit - you feel kind of guilty about that. So, I want to do things for other people's children.
Absolutely the worst thing about this job is the travel and being away from family. I have a wife and three wonderful children, the kids are all active in sports and it's very difficult to up and leave and miss them growing up.
Jeff Kinney is tall and has a great smile, but don't be fooled, he's as slick as they come. A real player. And how he came up with a book that appeals to kids ages 8-13 baffles me. He's an unbelievably kind man with a great family.
I hope the business sense that artists like Jay-Z and Nelly are showing rubs off on the young players. I want somebody to stand up and say, Look, these kids got it going on. We want to be a part of them.
I loved everything about show business, meeting the stars, the whole ambience. I was living every young kid's dream. I was told a pop singer's life was three years, but I was still making money seven years later.
I wouldn't sacrifice my business for no acting career because my business is something, ultimately, that I know I'm going to pass down to my kids, and that's most important to me than anything else in the world. I can't pass an acting career down to ...
I'm not a kid. You don't get in this business for anonymity. It's not like I have posters of myself on the wall, but at the same time, I'm kind of ready for a little bit of it, but I worry for my little one, and my family - their privacy. That's what...
Out of the 72 kids that I went to high school with, I still talk to 25 of them on a fairly regular basis. Seven of my classmates live in L.A., and five of them are in the entertainment business, and we constantly talk and play fantasy football togeth...
I didn't really start performing until high school. My whole family is actually in the business, and started in the business in Chicago, so I was going to shows when I was a teeny-tiny kid, but I didn't really start performing until high school.
That whole business of having two homes, and that divided loyalty bind that kids get into. I mean, my parents were divorced - though I was adult - but I still grappled with being responsible to both of them.
I am definitely still the same kid that I was picking up the guitar at 15. But, I have definitely learned to be more flexible and roll with the punches. It's such an unpredictable business to be in and it's insane how things change so last minute.
I was at a banquet, and I went into the ladies' room, and I'm in the stall doing my business, and a piece of paper and pen came from outside the door, and she says, 'Ms. Wagner, would you please sign this for me?' And I said, 'Are you kidding me?'
L.A. can be pretty insane because there's so much show business here, but I also know a lot of kids who grew up in Manhattan who are some of the most normal, nicest people I know. Casting directors always say Chicago people are just nicer.
City life is stressful. Everybody is running around like crazy, stuck in traffic jams trying to make meetings, trying to make ends meet, trying to meet deadlines, trying to get kids to and from activities. There aren't enough hours in the day for all...
You can do anything if you set your mind to it. Look out for kids, help them dream and be inspired. We teach calculus in schools, but I believe the most important formula is courage plus dreams equals success.
I did criminal defense work part-time, and that paid the bills for representing abused and neglected children... and for defending in juvenile court those kids the 'child protective system' had missed when it had the chance.
But when I really look back on my life, being really honest about it and now that I've got the chance to travel the world, seeing how a lot of little kids grow up - my life wasn't so bad.
When you're a kid you just think about where you are going to be to put yourself in a position for the next scoring chance. But as you develop, you start to do things that may not catch the eye of the normal football watcher, the dropping back, the c...
