Early life experience Quotes

The first music that came to my ear was gospel... I used to sing 'Amazing Grace' with a very strong southern accent and a vibrato already at five years old.

You know how sometimes you just have a memory of looking up and seeing a face looking over your crib and then remember nothing until tenth grade? - I have one of these early memories where I'm in the back of my parents' car, a place I loved to spend a lot of time as an only child, not having to fight with venomous siblings over the only toy.

The first am fight I had, I was 10 yrs. old. I didn't count, but as far as I remember, it was approximately 350 fights. It was a lot of fights.

The first film I was in was called 'Straight Time.' I was five-years old, and I was playing my father's son.

I was in the orphanage in New Orleans until I was almost a year old. I don't think I ever got held by my mama, so that was completely and utterly traumatic. I think it was trauma from the first breath, and I think I've spent my whole life trying to heal from that trauma. So it shaped my brain.

I acted when I was a real little kid. My mother was an actress in a Miami theater company comprised of actors from Cuba like her and I was the default kid.

Yes, I am Canadian, having sailed here from England on a Russian boat called the Alexander Pushkin when I was the ripe old age of 4.

I would have to say that my very first encounter with the arts was when my mother bought me my first record player when I was six years old as well as a Karen Carpenter record.

My entire life, I was told I was an old soul. I never really connected with other children when I was growing up.

I might sound crazy about this but, years ago, my mom told me: "We almost died when you were born. Both of us." I was a Caesarean baby, and the doctor who delivered me later told me, "I opened your mother up, and you were right there. It freaked me out because everything was broken and out-there." I've thought about it a lot - could this have something to do with the fact that I'm only happy when I'm at home and alone? Maybe I was just freaking out for two weeks before I was born, feeling really insecure.