My dad was an autoworker, my mom was a clerk. Until I was thirty-five, I never made more than fifteen thousand dollars a year.
I have an incredible role model in my mom. She was a single mother raising two kids in New York.
In America we tell our parents to bring their child home and put him or her in a crib; as they get older, children sleep in they own room not in Mom and Dad's room. What are we training them for? It's independence, because that's what being empowered is all about.
Chanel has always been this big thing for me - there are baby pictures of me wearing my mom's Chanel pumps.
I'd been writing stories since I was a child. I wrote little books for my mom and bound them myself with needle and thread. Mostly, they were about my pets.
My dad is a successful television producer, director and writer, and my mom's a director and writer. Even when I was young, I wanted to be an actress.
Ever since I was a little kid, I've felt comfortable in a suit. It all started when my mom bought me a three-piece Pierre Cardin suit. I wore that thing everywhere. Eventually I realized I was going to be the kid who got beat up in school, but I kept wearing it.
I actually always say that I have a son and a daughter, but I work more for my son, because I want him to respect women when he gets into the real world like he respects his mom right now.
My mom is positive and optimistic.
I remember the feeling of a tweed Chanel jacket because my mom used to wear one to work.
I used to have a blankie, and when my mom had to wash it, I would sit outside the dryer and watch it go round and round, and cry.
I fell in love with stories watching a British television puppet show called 'Thunderbirds' when it first came out on TV, about 1965, so I would have been 4 or 5 years old. I went out into the garden at my mom and dad's house, and I used to play with my little dinky toys, little cars and trucks and things.
My mom's a Catholic, and my dad's a Jew, and they didn't want anything to do with anything.
All my mom's side speaks Spanish. I speak to my grandparents in Spanish. Slowly. And they're patient with me! But I do speak with them in Spanish and carry on conversations with them.
I was always interested in comedy, like when I was 5 years old. I watched 'I Love Lucy' and 'Benny Hill.' I would always joke around with my sister. My mom was into comedy, too. She would go to the video store and get a couple of movies and some stand-up comedians' tapes.
My mom told us that we should have good shoes, a good suit, and a watch, so I was running around at age 10 looking like a little old man. But somehow I grew to understand that a watch is a representation of myself, of my culture, taste, awareness and aesthetic.
My mom, Nellie, got me a rosary at church. I don't use it to pray before a competition. I'll just pray normally to myself, but I have it there in case.
I'm somebody who doesn't work with a stylist. I'll be honest with you, I'm a mom and it's just not something I want to put money toward because it's expensive to have somebody who helps dress you and I feel like I have to pay for preschool and so many things... so I don't have a stylist.
Every time I sit down with a powerful working mom, I wrestle with whether to ask the 'mom question.' I don't want to be part of perpetuating a double standard by asking women in business a question that men are not asked.
My real dream is to have a whole, like, buy a whole piece of land. Imagine, like, a long driveway. Like, a cul de sac-type street, with maybe, like, seven houses. Me be right here. Have my mom be able to be right here. My brother over here. My girl's grandmother and family right here. Friends over there. That's my real dream.
I just picked up a lot of classic-rock, melodic influence from my mom, music that she listened to, like 10,000 Maniacs, Led Zeppelin, REO Speedwagon and Yes.
I took the 'Lee' from my grandparents, who took care of me during the day while my mom was away working.
There's this notion, kind of like unspoken, that you can't live your dreams and be a mom. You can't have a career and be a mom. There's still that preconceived notion, and I reject that.
The year my mom worked as a secretary at an apparel company in midtown, she would often come home in tears because she had mistakenly called her boss by another coworker's name. 'You know how it is,' my father said, 'they all look the same. It's not your mom's fault. There's just no telling them apart. Same high nose and deep-set eyes.'
I was a big fan of Aaliyah's. Growing up, my mom was a big fan of her music. When I grew to have my own taste in music, I really loved 'One In A Million.' That was my jam.
My mom's mother was from Virginia, but I don't feel much of a tie. I'm very much anti-South for many, many reasons. Whenever I go down there, people are always looking at me funny, you know.
I honestly don't even know how I got into acting. It happened so quickly because my mom and sister used to do commercials, and apparently when I was little I would unbuckle myself from the stroller and crash their auditions.
My grandmother, who picked cotton, and my mom, who picked cotton as a child - my grandmother had a work ethic. She had 13 children that she had to raise and ended up for a time moving into the projects, but because my grandmother had a work ethic, she didn't stay in the projects... that's not how she wanted to raise her children.
My mom never went to college, but for her own children, getting a great education was not an option.
All four of my grandparents were educators, my mom was a school nurse, and I went through the public school system.
He knows my limitations and where I'm a good wife and a good mom.
Most young people haven't used their storytelling skills since they were 8 or 9 or 10 and wanted to persuade Mom and Dad to take them to the ball game.
With social media, people share mostly their best moments. Don't feel like you're not doing enough when you see a mom posting about making applesauce after you bought it. Ha ha! It's fine! Just for raising a little human being, you should be commended.
My mom always told me to follow my bliss. And I remember specifically with my father, when I was out of school and not knowing how I'd get a job or make money - should I take some classes? What do I do? He said as long as I was working - to enrich myself in some way - that I was on the right path.
I was watching TV one day, and I'm like, 'How did those people get on TV? I'm gonna try that. Hey, mom, I want to be on TV!' And she's like, 'OK, let's get you an agent.'
My daughter is the most normal towards me. For her, I am just her mom. I am just a regular mom, and the actor comes after that. If she likes something that I am wearing, she tells me, and if she doesn't, she still makes it a point to let me know.
