I am compelled to continuously see the bright side. It is in my DNA. My kids look at me and say: 'Mom, you're so happy!' And I do feel happy. I feel joyful inside. I can't explain it.
My mom and I were super tight. I think she really wanted me to be an artist, you know? She used to like to tell people she wanted to be Beethoven's mother. That was her thing. She wanted to be the mother of this person.
My first language is both English and Spanish. My mom was raised in Los Angeles, so with her we spoke English, but my father was born in Cuba, so with him we spoke Spanish.
I'm not sure what I want to do when I grow up, or if I'm sure I ever want to grow up. I'm sure there are people that wish I would, but you know, my mom will get over it.
I can't watch myself in interviews. I feel like I look like a wreck. My mom is always calling me and going, 'Stop fidgeting,' and it's like, 'You have no idea what it's like, Mom.'
When I was a child, I wanted to be an actor, but I had really bad buckteeth. I didn't want to get braces, but my mom said I couldn't be an actor if I didn't get the braces. So, I got the braces.
I showed my mom the movie then I told her the movie got bought and that it was gonna be shown in theatres and be on video. Everyone was really psyched about it. Everyone in my little town of hounds started to call me movie star.
My mom worked as a psychiatric social worker. She was interested in people, and I guess I am, too. So we would talk about the people that we knew, and why they behaved the way they did.
My mom is very structured. She gets up, she does her prayers, and she eats her oatmeal with blueberries and Greek yogurt, and she has her prayer list, and she doesn't worry too much about things.
My mom would be leaving the house and she'd say, 'Don't you pull out all of the old dresses in the attic and put on a show again!' And the door would close, and that's exactly what I'd do. The show was calling me!
I watch the weirdest things. I watch old episodes of 'Golden Girls' because my mom watches it, so I grew up watching that. Sometimes I watch reruns of 'Futurama,' which is a cartoon and not based in the real world at all.
When I was younger, on weekends, my mom would make us pancakes with our initials on them and then a tiny cup of coffee. I remember at 10 sneaking my own coffee and pouring a ton of sugar in and going up to the playroom and drinking it.
When I eat, I have to chop up everything on the plate and stir it all together. It devastates my mom. Everyone at the table is like, 'That looks like cat vomit.' And I stir my Coke with a spoon until it's flat.
I told my agents that I didn't want to go on the audition. But as that was happening I called my mom, who has been watching the show from the beginning, and my mom said, 'It's the coolest show. You have to go.'
I do doubles on Monday and Thursday, take Wednesday off or do easy cardio, do doubles on Thursday and Friday, and the weekend I just get outside and get active - jog or bike ride, or play tennis with my mom.
I grew up painting and playing piano so when I was a little kid I thought I was going to be an artist or a painter but my mom had me taking piano lessons for about 10-12 years as a young kid.
I'm an immigrant kid who came to America from India when I was very young and grew up in New York City with a single mom and really was influenced by all of those immigrant cultures bumping up against each other.
My mom once lost track of me at the zoo and when she found me I was lecturing a man about the difference between dromedary and Bactrian camels. I was about 3 1/2.
There's a book called 'The Shack' - it had a lot to do with me coming full circle, meeting my birth mother. Awhile back, my birth mom and my adopted mom came to my show together, and it was pretty surreal.
I know my mom said as early as she can remember letting me watch TV, my one treat a week when I was like 6 was to stay up and watch 'Saturday Night Live.'
In 1984, my mom gave birth to my older sister, Teresa. Due to a complicated delivery, she needed a blood transfusion, and at that moment, my mom had HIV+ blood put into her body.
