My parents always told my sister and me that if we wanted to, we could be doctors and lawyers, like my father and his brothers, like some of their women friends. Denise and I had art in our sights, though.
It was about 2012, 2013. I started from zero. Small fashion shows, small photoshoots. I've seen a lot. I've seen a lot of things up close. I married my sister off; I gave jahez for her wedding. I tried to keep relations going with my family. I bought a house for them in Multan. My parents are settled in Multan; my house is there.
I made numerous attempts to find a way to do it all, to be a creative singer, songwriter, producer, and to be the mother, daughter, sister, lover, wife. And the thing about music is, with me, that she's a harsh mistress. She does not come to me in the midst of stress.
I remember when I was like, 'I want to get another shot.' And some of the other actors on 'Sister, Sister' were like, 'Do you know that's like a 1%, 2% chance for you to get another successful show? That just doesn't happen.' But whenever I hear, 'No,' or 'You can't,' something inside of me just goes, 'Oh no, yes I can!'
Well, I'm Italian, but my family isn't stereotypical. I mean, I only have one sister and we don't yell or throw pasta at each other. My mother doesn't even have a secret spaghetti sauce recipe.
I'd heard Joyce Grenfell on the radio, and when Mum gave me a book of her comic routines, I just loved it. Me and my sister shared a bedroom, and every night I'd drive her mad with my version of 'George, Don't Do That' about people we knew at school.
I first read 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' when I was a kid. And I think it was read to me. Me and my sister both had a copy and loved the books.
I'm like a middle-aged person; when my friends go on about modern bands, I don't know what they are talking about. I'm into rock n' roll, like Jimi Hendrix. Not so much because of my parents, who used to play a lot of Nina Simone and older blues, but my brother and sister.
If you don't like your sister or don't get along with your father, let's find out if you like yourself. Let's not sugarcoat anything about it.
My mother came from an Irish family of 11 kids and, of course, had a sister who was a nun, so I spent time at a convent and with an aunt and uncle who lived in New York and took me to the theater.
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.
The day I won an Emmy was also the day my father passed away. I received a call from my sister on the way to the ceremony and had to turn my car around and catch the first flight back to Karachi.
I didn't go abroad until quite late. A friend drove us to Amalfi, Italy, for his sister's wedding when I was a teenager. It was exciting driving through Europe.
My sister has a non-profit organization called Mission Change. It helps the homeless and kids.
The ultimate problem confronting me all my life has been the senseless injury to and neglect of my sister.
Our sister Alma was the best hitter in the family. We used to soak corn cobs in water so they wouldn't fly so far when we hit 'em. Alma was the first to hit one far enough to break a window in the barn.
My father was born on Christmas Day in 1934. He grew up in what is now part of North Korea. When the Korean War began, my father was 16, and he found passage on an American refugee ship,thinking he'd be gone for just a few days, but he never saw his mother or his sister again.
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.
With my father and sister being very depressed for most of their lives, it was incumbent on me to try to make them laugh, in this ridiculous way. They were the wittiest people I knew, but to get a smile from them was like winning the lottery.
I've been working on my relationship with my parents and my sister over the years. We have become more close. I think having kids makes you want to keep the gang together.
What little family I got is in Mississippi. A whole lot of them died before I left, and my sister died a long time ago, before my mama did.
I used to make clothes for my sister's dolls. I couldn't care less for the dolls, but I could make the clothes really easily.
I've always really liked being active. I do Spinning classes, I run, I have a trainer, I do Pilates with my sister Shade.
My sister lived in England for a while when I was 12, and I came to visit her, and I spent most of the time in her flat reading.
One of the things that I really enjoyed playing with Ender was how he's constantly struggling between his brother and his sister. It's like he's got two sides to him. And I've always wanted to play a darker character, and in this film and in the novel, Ender has his moments where he isn't a glorified hero.
I was always bossing my sister around.
My poor sister was forced to be in the plays that I would write. We would go to my grandma's retirement building and perform 'Phantom of the Opera.'
It's not hard to draw from within yourself to play someone protective of her daughter. I have animals and I'm a daughter, sister, wife, aunt and friend, and I can be fiercely protective.
My sister is a chiropractor and she says I have an unusually flexible lower back, but I don't do yoga, and I don't feel like I'm very bendy.
I had begun reading earlier than most because my sister Emmy Lou, no doubt to keep me from bothering her, decided it was easier to teach me to read stories to myself rather than to read them to me, as she had been doing.
I grew up in Decatur, Georgia. We had three boys in the household; actually, it felt like four of us. My pops sort of raised my uncle, too. So, it was four boys and, later, a younger sister.
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.
This is going to sound crazy, but there was a period of time where on TLC they would show those surgeries - like a woman had a 90-pound tumor, or they separated these twins. And my sister and I - she lived in Ohio when I lived in California - would watch them together on the phone.
Your sister knows everything to say to piss you off. But sisters tend to be each other's biggest champion and also their hardest critics.
It's a twin type of telepathy. My sister and I, we share the same DNA, so on paper, we're the same person. I knew she was pregnant, like, right away - it's so crazy - but I asked her, and she said yes.
It was magical growing up in New Jersey. My sister and I would go nuts in the basement and do full theater productions. We used a humidifier as a fog machine. It was over the top.