I think not having come from the DJ world was an asset to me at first because I didn't have some of the habits other DJs had, and I think in a way that set me apart.
No one in my family had ever done anything acting-wise or entertainment industry-wise.
Nobody heard records of you playing whatever the melody was on those low strings. It worked out good, you know, about 25 or 26 million records later. I guess it worked out alright.
I didn't study acting.
Nothing in my background has anything to do with films. In that sense, I am a complete outsider.
I was a chemical engineer in school. And, randomly, an ex-girlfriend dared me to do a play.
Growing up the way I did, being an actor in Hollywood was definitely never a plausible career choice at all.
I have a curious background for someone who turns out to be a writer.
I didn't go to film school, I went to acting school.
I live a very normal life. I have friends, and I've always gone to school. The part that's not normal is that I've been working since I was 9 months old, but at the same time, it's completely normal to me.
There wasn't really anything I wanted to do other than acting, which is ridiculous because there were no actors in my family, and we didn't know anything about acting.
I wasn't a child who wanted to be an actor.
Since I am not from a film family, I come with a different perspective. I come from a regular world. Of course, there's not always the help and assistance you'd get if you were from a filmi family, but I really didn't miss that.
My upbringing was absolutely not the archetypal writer's upbringing. Even, arguably, the opposite.
I never knew I wanted to become a ballerina. I was discovered at the age of 13. I had a love for movement even though I had no exposure to dance other than what I saw in music videos, like hip-hop music videos. But I knew that I loved moving.
I knew nothing about professional comedians when I became a comedian. I was a rabbi. So I had no professional comedians to learn from.
I'm a contemporary artist with a bit of an unexpected background. I was in my 20s before I ever went to an art museum. I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road in rural Arkansas, an hour from the nearest movie theater.