Mom was the greatest influence of my childhood. She wanted to save me from the vice, lust, and drinking that was all about me.
My father came from Germany. My mom came from Venezuela. My father's culturally German, but his father was Japanese. I was raised in New York and spent two years in Rio. My parents met at the University of Southern Mississippi, and they had me there,...
My mom was always the supplier of soccer balls, and so people were always knocking on my door, and trying to get me out so we could play.
I wanted to get us a place of our own with a little bit more space. The kitchen is just huge, because my mom... lives there, man, and she loves being in the kitchen.
My mom, she was unbelievable. She ran the whole town. She was like the mayor. There would be 15 people eating at our lunch table. She'd drag people from the street.
I actually got started in acting when I was in pre-school. I was really into dance and performing, so my mom had me in dance classes, and then I got involved in a local theater company.
The hardest thing for me is planning ahead. My mom was brilliant at it.
I'm able to shift gears from mom to performer to mom pretty quickly.
I couldn't wait until I grew up. I used to look at my mom's stockings and put them on with her high heels and mess with my hair.
We were poor. But my mom never accepted that. She worked hard to become a residential contractor - got her master's with honors at the University of New Orleans. I used to go to every class with her. Her father was my paternal figure.
Grades were important in our house. I was reading by two. My mom would sit there and read with me, read with me, read with me. It was wonderful.
Starting in my teens, I was always standing on the corner near our apartment singing harmony with friends. We'd also go to the park and sing under the bridge near the lake for the echo. When it was cold out, we'd stand in the little heated lobby in t...
Country was about character. Country's changed because of monsters like Clear Channel who bought up all the stations and sliced them up into formats. Our demographic is now the soccer mom.
I've had broken bones and cuts and dashes and tears from movies, but when I was five, my mom put the biscuits up high so we wouldn't be helping ourselves. So, one day I asked to stand up on a chair to get a biscuit, and it fell, and the corner of the...
One of my most sentimental items is my grandmother's engagement ring that my mom gave me a few years ago. It's a Victorian-style setting that's closed in the back, so it doesn't sparkle the way diamonds do now. I wear it as a pendant.
When I was a baby, my mom was always bringing me onto set.
My mom used to tell me: 'It's not what you weigh; it's what you look like.'
I learned from my mom to always keep pushing yourself.
My mom says I'm a fighter, a fierce competitor, and I think I am, too.
My mom was definitely very strict with me.
Before this DJ thing, I was hopelessly taking things apart to try to figure out how they worked. I'd go mess around with burned-out cars, with my mom's stereo - I was public enemy #1 in my house for that. So my mom noticed that I was interested in th...
