An adolescent is both an impulsive child and a self-starting adult.
I was still thought of as a kid actor even though I was in my mid twenties.
I grew up in Denver, Colorado. After high school I went to Vegas.
I have friends my age who started smoking pot when they got out of college. They didn't get anywhere. But if they drank, they managed to go somewhere. Does that make sense?
I founded Camellia Network with my dear friend Isis Dallis Keigwin. The mission of our organization is to create a national network that connects every youth aging out of foster care to the critical resources, opportunities, and support they need to thrive in adulthood.
Families in the autism community have shared with me their fears as their children transition to adulthood. Many people lose access to crucial services and face tremendous uncertainty if their parents can no longer care for them.
Before college, I was Cyndi, and then I think I went to college and I was like, 'You know what? Now I'm Cynthia.'
I think there comes a point in probably most father-son relationships where the son kind of starts becoming the parent.
Parents always stay older than you, but sibling sort of become adults together, and that complicates that relationship, I think.
Going from a child actor to an adult actor is not an easy thing, and I was sort of lost in a no man's land for a while, trying to figure out who I was as a person, and going from a young actor to an adult actor.
What is missing from today's dialogue is the effect autism is having on families, our society and what the unknown factors are. The 300lb. gorilla in the room is that our children with autism today will soon become adults with autism.
If you don't get famous when you're a kid, it makes the transition to adult actor easier.
Some people manage to make that transition from child actor to adult actor seamlessly. But I felt that if I spent my whole life on a film set without taking a few years to do something else, all I would ever know about was film sets.
I love the idea of college, but I first need to figure out how to transition to being an adult because we honestly never thought I would make it to this point.
The powerlessness of the child is often forgotten. And after it comes the terrifying phase of moving into adulthood.
The idea of trust-fund guys who live in Brooklyn in their 30s is really interesting to me. There's a time and a place where that kind of bohemian lifestyle is appropriate, soon after college, in your 20s. But there are people still living that many years later; they haven't evolved to the next phase.
I knew that I wanted to meet girls, so I joined a fraternity, and I did yoga.
I can look back at it now as definitely like an initiation into adulthood. Almost overnight in the NFL, I was put on a pedestal and I was supposed to be this icon or this image of what a professional athlete was supposed to be. I felt like I just got stuck trying to be someone else and I forgot who I actually was.
