I definitely had a very religious upbringing. My father was just instilling good morals into us at a very young age, and it wasn't super-strict, but it was a loving, warm household.
By the grace of God, my parents were fantastic. We were a very normal family, and we have had a very middle-class Indian upbringing. We were never made to realise who we were or that my father and mother were huge stars - it was a very normal house, and I'd like my daughter to have the same thing.
I have nothing to say about my childhood. It was a perfectly pleasant upbringing - it's not like it was unhappy or anything.
I've been accused of my publicist of being too confessional... it's probably my Celtic upbringing.
I definitely don't see myself as much of a singer, because my upbringing is really based around the guitar, learning chord progressions and that sort of thing. So the singing aspect of what I do has been a secondary adventure.
Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.
I was friends with all different people and all different groups. And that led me to being friends with a few people who didn't even go to my school. Now I have the most amazing collection of friends of all ethnic backgrounds and upbringing and financial backgrounds.
The acting training in school was great, but it was mostly fun being young and in New York. Because my upbringing was so transient, New York ended up being my home. I've been living in New York longer than I have anywhere else in my life.
I had such a great upbringing in Puerto Rico, and it was just a very normal life.
When I was younger, I used to think that my unconventional upbringing was a weakness, but over the past few years, I've learnt to see it as one of my greatest strengths.
I had a somewhat religious upbringing. Not strict, but it was there, and I'm kind of thankful for that. If you grow up just watching MTV, that's its own form of religion, and it's not even based on happiness or communal responsibility. I mean, try to construct a worldview out of that.
Unfortunately, in my home, we didn't speak Arabic; it was a mixed culture. My mother played a dominant role in our educational upbringing, and we grew up as part and parcel of Belize's culture.
For me growing up, I had a Christian upbringing, and I just noticed this Catholic influence in school.
I'm like, 'Wow, I guess a lot of people didn't have this type of upbringing'... that old world technique of, you know, nothing's given to you, you've gotta work for everything you've done... It's just different from what I'm seeing today.
If I wasn't acting, I would own a farm. Not like growing crops but maybe have a few animals like cows, and maybe an alpaca or a llama. I would chop wood all day. I would make a living doing that; it's, like, an idealistic scenario for me. It's very contrary to my upbringing, but maybe that's the appeal to it.