I don’t know any Beatles songs. My dad never listened to Elvis or Sting or Bowie. Any band name that’s on a t-shirt, I probably won’t know their music, like AC/DC or whatever. I don’t know what that is. As a kid, I would sing along to artists like Tania Maria.
My dad was very successful running midgets in Texas. Then, his two drivers ran into some bad luck. People started saying that Daddy had lost his touch. That it was the cars and not the drivers. I wanted to race just to prove all those people wrong.
My mother was keen that I complete my graduation and never ever wanted me to be in the movies, as my father had made five films that lost money. One of the films he made was ‘Agneepath,’ which was hugely hyped but underwhelming at the box office, and I remember that my dad had to sell my grandmother’s flat to pay off the loan.
One of my friend’s dad owned a grocery store, and one of the kids who worked at the grocery store was a wrestler. We got tickets to one of the shows, and then we stayed after, and they asked us if we wanted to get in there and train a little bit.
We grew up probably having as hard a life as anybody. A lot of times, we didn’t have any food on the table. At Christmas, everybody else would always get something nice, but we’d get one T-shirt or one shirt… So I want to take care of Mom and Dad… and I’m having a damn good time doing it.
I started as a road cyclist and did all types apart from BMX. I started doing a lot of competitions, and then my dad suggested I tried the track. At first the thought of falling is scary, but you realise soon that if you go fast enough, you’ll be fine. I realised it was more than a hobby when I was 16.
My dad would tell me bedtime stories, and he used to always leave them open-ended and finish at a crucial point with the words, ‘dream on’. Then it was my responsibility to finish the story as I was drifting off to sleep. We would call them dreaming stories.
I learned from my dad’s mistakes. I think that’s why I’m so into my son. I bring him lunch every day: McDonald’s, Taco Bell, whatever junk food a kid likes, I will bring it for him. I’ve canceled gigs so I could be at moments for him. That wasn’t a big thing for my dad.
My dad is the reason I actually started watching wrestling. My dad was never big into sports; we were all big into sports as kids, and he’d go to our Little League games or whatever and not really know what was going on, because he didn’t know about sports, but he knew about wrestling.
My dad always told me you have to be as quick as you can straight away out of the box. Some people say, ‘Feel your way into it; build it up.’ No. My dad would say, ‘Straight away, you have to be there.’ And I think that helps to warm up your tyres and brakes to be on it a bit more from lap one.
He’s the reason why I write music. If he’s reading this – James Taylor, I’d love to work with you! My mom would put headphones on her belly before I was born, so I’ve been listening to him literally all of my life. When my dad played me ‘Walking Man,’ I heard those chord changes and that melody, it completely blew me away.
For my birthday this year, my girlfriends – who knew I’d just inherited my dad’s turntable – gave me a carton of albums like ‘Blue Kentucky Girl,’ by Emmylou Harris, and ‘Off the Wall,’ by Michael Jackson. It’s all stuff we grew up with. I mean, you can’t have a music collection without Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ – it just can’t be done!
As a dad, you are the Vice President of the executive branch of parenting. It doesn’t matter what your personality is like, you will always be Al Gore to your wife’s Bill Clinton. She feels the pain and you are the annoying nerd telling them to turn off the lights.
Playing music has always felt very natural. You know, you do try to do other things, and you do learn lessons that way, but, eventually – well… if your dad is a plumber, you become a plumber. It’s the family business, and I felt like I was taking over the family business.
Growing up in the ‘70s and ’80s when my dad had an art gallery, one of the things that frustrated me was the world seemed so tiny, and to appreciate contemporary art, you needed a history of art, a formal education. I was more interested in the people, and that’s why I went into the movie business in the first place.
I grew up in Northern California – Marin County, Tiburon. And it’s interesting. It’s a very rich place, but a lot of the affluent people are – they’re not as showy. So, like, they might have, like, a Saab or a Volvo. And then here comes my dad from Iran. He buys a Rolls-Royce.
You have to find a man that’s going to respect you. With my husband, I tell him all the time the fact that he grew up in a home with his mom and his dad and they were married until he was grown made him have certain values and certain respect for me.
In the ‘Garnethill’ trilogy, people always forget that Maureen O’Donnell’s dad was a journalist and she did art history at uni and her brother did law, but no-one ever thinks they’re middle-class – they’re just working class because they speak with accents.
When two people break up, it’s all about them; they can’t see anyone else. And the people getting smashed to bits are the kids. Then you’re getting torn – your mum wants you, your dad wants you. You just get shredded. It has a long-lasting effect as well.
One of the biggest things growing up that my dad taught me is that if I was okay to talk about my feelings and express how I felt and not get angry, then he would listen to me. If I had issues, I would just tell him, ‘Here’s how I feel, this is what I’m feeling,’ either with him or with my mom.
There are bands that I got into when I was 15, when I was mad at my dad and just wanted to be different. I don’t think I’d give those bands half a chance now. But I hold some kind of nostalgia for them that I won’t let go. Bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag.
I’m a really good driver. I’ve been driving since I was very small, and I do like driving fast. I remember the first time my dad taught me that when you go into a corner you change down then put your foot right down on the way out. I’m very competitive about driving.
I’ve always had a burning desire to help people and make a difference in the world. I didn’t know how I could do that in modelling when it can be such a fake world. But my dad told me I could make a difference by being true to myself and teaching people what I’ve learnt about spirituality, health and nutrition.
I love my dad. There is no doubt about that. He is a wonderful man and a good person. Like many father/son relationships, we have our struggles, our misunderstandings, and our miscommunications. We are very different people, but also very similar at the same time.
I was born on the other side of the tracks, in public housing in Brooklyn, New York. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year, and I grew up in a family that lost health insurance. So I was scarred at a young age with understanding what it was like to watch my parents lose access to the American dream.
