When I was little, my dad used to call me ‘Bandarella,’ because I was a mess – a Bandar is a monkey in Hindi. I was not a girly-girl and would always break something and would be running around and didn’t really fit in.
I do remember being a kid and hearing Van Halen. My dad was always playing Van Halen in the car.
I believe Dad will be respected in 300 years, like Beethoven. As will Elvis, as will the Carter Family, as will Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams.
I think about me and my dad taking a road trip from Phoenix to Nashville when I was 19. He’s no longer here with me, but I still drive that same 1994 Chevy truck. I never have bought a new car.
My mom works at an accounting firm; my dad’s a math teacher.
One of the things my dad and I got to bond over was going to the San Antonio Spurs games when Gervin was there, James Silas… I can’t remember the rest of the guys’ names, but it was a fun time.
Dad was a distant figure, autonomous, a cross between the Pope and Mussolini. He was very Italian, as were all of my uncles, although they were second generation.
I’ve got the best parents you could ever ask for. My parents are from New Jersey, and they met in Vermont in college. My Dad grew up listening to heavy, psychedelic music. He’s my biggest fan.
Studies show that children best flourish when one mom and one dad are there to raise them.
My dad tells me I smile to keep from crying. I don’t know about that. But I do think you sometimes smile to hide.
My dad turned me onto Peter Sellers as a kid. I loved the fact that he was a unique combination of being extremely subtle and over-the-top all at the same time, and that’s a hard thing to do. I admire that.
I look back on the influence my dad had on my life and career, and I just try to take the best parts of what he had.
My guess is that my mom and dad are very actively involved in the affairs of the next life, and they don’t spend too much time looking back. My dad used to say he always looks forward; he never looks back.
My mom liked to have us travel in first class with her. She’s like, ‘I work for my money, and I want my kids to live a certain kind of way.’ My dad used to get so mad at my mom for flying us first class. So it was a clash on that.
It is a sad commentary of our times when our young must seek advice and counsel from ‘Dear Abby’ instead of going to Mom and Dad.
I’m driving my dad’s old ute. So it’s a manual ute. It’s massive, so when people see me coming, they just kind of run away!
My mom, dad and me were a compact group. They instilled in me a love for the outdoors. On school breaks, we’d go fishing for a week in the wilds of Alaska or Canada. The land was always in their souls.
Even when I was doing well in acting, my dad would say, ‘You can still go back to dental school.’ But since I’ve been on ‘90210,’ I haven’t heard that.
It’s public news my dad was up and down financially.
I’ve just got crap hair. Although I inherited a lot of stuff from my dad, including giant knees, I didn’t get his good, thick hair. I got my mother’s thin, wispy, non-event hair instead.
Humans have voids, and you need things to fill voids… I didn’t have a dad to fill that male model void, so when I heard Eminem or freaking seen Dave Chapelle, that’s what I gravitated to.
My dad was an actor, and he made it all seem quite magical. It felt like a slightly subversive thing, telling stories, when all of my other friends’ parents were builders or bank clerks. It’s always seemed quite magical to me.
When I came to America, I told my dad I wanted to be an actress.
Ten years ago, I went to visit my dad in Australia. I walked to the edge of a cliff and looked over and tripped. I righted myself but my head was over the edge. No one saw it.
I had my footballing heroes such as Bryan Robson and Diego Maradona but my dad was a rugby league star, and he was my real hero. But the relationship with my mum was rocky and we saw things that would affect any youngster.
