My dad is from Panama; he came to the U.S. in 1971. He came to study chemical engineering at the University of Delaware. He thought he would go back, and then he met my mom here. I was born and mostly raised in Delaware.
I don't know much about only children. I was the middle one of three, and if ever I was alone with mum and dad, it was a rare moment.
My dad was a terrible father. Dreadful. But he had a very difficult childhood. He was fostered - he never knew who his father was. So he had a very different attitude to family and kids. I don't have any issues. I'm not suffering some secret angst.
My dad said 'When you love what you do, you never work a day in your life,' and I agree with that.
My parents waited to have me and my sister - my dad was 43 when my mother had me, and my mom was 38. They purposefully waited until they had had their adventures in life so that we wouldn't represent the end of their freedom.
Me and my mum didn't see eye-to-eye for a lot of years, and I've never really felt connected with my dad, because he wasn't there.
My dad had a stroke. It's one of those life-changing events. It was right around the time I was turning 40. We were doing 'L.A. Law,' and I got this call that my dad was in Rome and had had a stroke. I want to stress that it wasn't a huge stroke, but it was enough to provide a serious wake-up call.
I grew up on a council estate in south London; my dad was a bus driver and my mum sewed clothes to bring in extra money. My parents worked hard and were able to save up and buy a home for our family.
I remember I was in grade school, the fourth grade, in a free reading period in the library. Someone in my class found a copy of the Forbes 400, a list of the richest people in America, and my dad's name was on it.
I had what you could call a chaotic childhood. My parents divorced when I was 2; I went back and forth between my mom's and dad's houses for years. But, you know, my parents tried to do the right thing. As crazy as everything was, and as much fighting and everything, there was always a feeling of support from them.
You see people you identify with, and you take pieces of people you like and shape who you are. Like, I sound just like my dad. But that's literally my vocal chords. I can't sound like anything else... I sound like him, but I act like myself.
Things with my dad were pretty good until I won an Academy Award. He was really loving to me until I got more attention than he did. Then he hated me.
Many of my deepest insecurities stem from my issues with my dad.
I think my dad is the only Arabic descendent who is an unsuccessful businessman.
Most of the time, the lyrics are kind of like my secret messages to my friends or my boyfriend or my mom or my dad. I would never tell them that these songs are about them or which specific lyric is about somebody. Often, when I sit down to write a lyric, it is in the heat of the moment, and something has just happened.
I never grew up on Jodeci. I never grew up on things like that 'cause my dad was a preacher, and he kind of kept us away from music like that.
My dad was an FBI agent. My mom and dad were straight arrow types, and I had a conservative, suburban Orange County upbringing.
There were about 30 children at one stage, running around like savages at a place called Callow Hill, near Monmouth, which was owned by my grandparents. They lived in the big house, but my dad had five brothers and a sister, and they all lived in various houses scattered on the hill.
My dad was pretty strict. We didn't even get to watch any of his movies until I was, like, 17 years old. I didn't even see his stand-up, really, until I started doing stand-up, and that was when I was 22. So he's pretty strict. We had curfews until I was 17... he didn't play around.
When I was 14, my dad came home one day and told us he had cancer. It was looking pretty bad. And I remember him saying how afraid he was that he hadn't gotten to do the things he wanted to do during his life. He had surgery and survived. And he's still alive today, thank God. But it made a big impact on me.
My parents had a difficult divorce. My dad had to take a backseat for a few years, and my grandfather came in. He was also my inspiration for becoming an actor. I really respected him.
My dad was one of only four congressmen who supported Reagan.
Every celebrity in the world, if their movie bombs or whatever, they hold their kid up on a magazine and say, 'I'm really a dad.'
I will not say anything about my father. Period. I don't have a dad.
I didn't get a lot of attention from my dad when I was young. That's a big part of it for girls. Because your dad is the first love of your life. If he doesn't put you on his lap and give you a pet, you do end up not really liking yourself that much.
I was born in Orange County - in Santa Ana. My dad is from California. I was raised on the East Coast. My first two years were in California, but I claim East Coast. I'm sorry, I don't rep California.
My mum was a librarian, and my dad worked in Greenland.
My dad was in the Navy, and I was raised with a strong commitment to service.
My dad was an engineer, and he became the CEO of Chevron. His was an engineer's mind-set: Everything's kind of a problem; how do you approach the problem?
Work ethic has always been stressed in my family. My dad is going to be 80 years old and he still works part time. My mom just retired a couple years ago and she's in her mid- to late 70s.
I was a momma's boy. I didn't get anything from Dad, except my body and baseball knowledge. The only time I spent with him was at the ballpark.
When I was 13, I was saying that I wanted to be signed to a label. I was begging my dad to get me signed with somebody.
Gene Krupa was my big hero, and I used to play on my mother's flour cans and sugar cans with the kitchen knives, listening to the big bands on my dad's records. Gene Krupa and Harry James.
I have four older siblings and one younger, and all three of my brothers are in the music industry. My dad was really involved in music, too, with the disco, and he also started Radio Caroline and was the one who invented pirate radio, if you like, off on a coast in England on a boat.
The script for 'In Good Company' was the first one I ever showed my dad.
I would sing at home. I would sing in the car with my dad, but whenever he tried to make me sing in church, I was like, 'Nah, I'm not doing that.' I didn't want to sing in front of all these people.
