Mercedes Ruehl Quotes

My wife and I live in Brooklyn, N.Y., not too far from where my Long Island childhood happened.

I grew up all around the Bay, but I spent most of my time in Hayward and I loved it. It was a really big apartment community, there was a whole bunch of kids.

My background with acting is deeply interwoven with my family life and my childhood. It's a 'Peter Pan'-like narrative, something that was golden but could also be a bit dubious.

My childhood is completely... when I look back, it was '50s in New York, upper-middle class, it was completely idyllic and golden and wonderful - sweet in every way.

I lived in Peckham for the first 12 years of my life and then my mum and dad decided they really didn't want to bring up their children there. So they saved up money and bought a house in Plumstead, semi-detached, three bedrooms.

I was born in Westchester, NY. I grew up around the Rye Brook area, and then I moved to White Plains with my family.

I had a really normal childhood except I acted. It was like, my brother played soccer, and I was on television sometimes.

I had the best of both worlds when I was a kid. I'd spend a quiet week with my mum, then I'd go to my dad's property in the Adelaide Hills, where there were all these kids and animals running around.

I grew up in a very small country town in Victoria. I had a very normal, low-key kind of upbringing. I went to school, I hung out with my friends, I fought with my younger sisters. It was all very normal.

Our family life, before figure skating turned it upside down, seemed normal. Our town of Riverside, Connecticut, was part of Greenwich, and we had the advantage of their wonderful community, with great beaches and beautiful parks.

I was 6, and I was in the opera 'Carmen.' My dad sang opera and got me into the children's chorus. I was super fat at the time and didn't make eye contact with anyone. I knew I loved acting ever since.

As a child, I lived in Germany at the Ramstein air force base, where my dad sang at a nightclub in Kaiserslautern. My parents couldn't afford a babysitter, so when I was, like, ten or 11, I would go with them to the bar until two in the morning.

I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.

I grew up with the white picket fence. My dad went to work nine to five, and he had a station wagon.

I wasn't hanging around the movie theaters in New York where I grew up, a Manhattan brat.

I'm a really nostalgic person. I love taking photos and video and having memories. I remember all my childhood videos that my dad used to take. I think that's really what life is about - especially when you start a family of your own.

I'm a soccer dad at heart. I want five kids, and I want to get married. I want to coach Little League.

As a child, I always remember our home, which was a flat just on the Barnes side of Hammersmith Bridge in London, buzzing with actors such as Patrick McGee and Peter Bowles. We were a family who were always on the go.

I used to go to musicals every birthday - that was my birthday present. We'd go to London, me and my two brothers and mum and dad. I think I saw 'Mamma Mia' about five times.

Well, let's put in this way, I grew up in West New York, New Jersey.

When I was younger, I did lots of plays, put on shows for Mum and Dad, made my brother dress up in ridiculous tutus and whatnot to perform in front of them. I think my pre-primary report was like, 'Has a flair for drama' - it was just a little side note.

When I was seven and we lived in New York, I ran away. I took my dog and started out across the Brooklyn Bridge... I didn't get very far... It's rather difficult to run away in your mother's high heels.

The house was big enough for my brother and me to have firecracker wars at one end and leave Mom and Dad undisturbed at the other. When firecrackers weren't available, we attacked each other with pennies and marbles and clumps of Crisco, which made brilliant greasy asterisks when you missed and hit the wall.

My dad worked for a theatre company that was two minutes away from my primary school, so I'd just walk there after school and watch the rehearsals. I think that's probably when I fell in love with acting and telling stories.

My dad was this Jack-of-all-trades, entrepreneur type. I secretly think he may be a spy, when I really think about it and I kind of connect the pieces. That's what led us to moving to Japan when I was four.