Basically, my mum and dad bought me a CD player for my 14th birthday. They didn’t really listen to music at all, but my dad had a couple of tapes that he’d listen to, like Tom Lehrer. My dad was a physicist and Tom Lehrer was like this really weird Harvard class professor, who was really cool because he was also a satirist and pianist.
When I was younger, me and my dad used to do different things. I don’t think I would call it community service. It was more just us doing nice things. We used to donate to Goodwill or do can drives. Give people money if they needed it. Little things like that.
When I was ten years old, my dad and brother did judo, so I went along because I felt like I was missing out. They eventually gave up, and I continued, then moved into Tae Kwon Do, kickboxing and various other martial arts. I did lots of different things, but mostly things like Wushu, Jeet Kune Do, Krav Maga and stuff like that.
I got a bad conduct discharge, was at home for a few months in late ‘99, and basically said, ’Dad, I want to give wrestling a shot. I sure as hell don’t wanna go to college, and the Marine Corps wasn’t for me. And I need to make some money, so let’s see if I can do it.’
My dad’s nickname was MacGyver when we were kids. He’d hijack my projects all the time. When I got older, he would not do it as much… but he would just end up hijacking the whole thing. You should see the look in his eyes when he gets to create stuff.
But I honestly don’t read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can’t hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the criticism.
Mom was a school teacher, and she had to be at work at 7:30 every morning. So Dad was in charge of us three kids around the breakfast table. He always made it creative: he did the bananas with the smiley face and the eyes with peanut butter on top, made us drink grapefruit every morning even though we had to do it holding our noses.
My dad was a very unconventional Asian American man. He was very much not quiet, not shy, not passive. If he had to fart, he’d do it in the library. He did not care. He was like, ‘I don’t know these people. I’m uncomfortable, and I need to let it go.’
When I was younger, my dad was making a music video for a band in Montreal. I was goofing around and being a ham. An agent was there and she was telling me, ‘Hey, do you think you’d want to go out on auditions?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, what’s an audition? Sure, I’ll do it.’
My father’s name is Dee, so when I was born they named me Katherine Dee and they took the K from Katherine and put it with his name, sort of to give me my dad’s namesake. But it’s hysterical how often it gets misspelled. I used to be like, ‘No one capitalizes my D!’
Dad’s Jewish and Irish, Mom’s German and Scotch. I couldn’t say I was anything. My last name isn’t even Downey. My dad changed his name when he wanted to get into the Army and was underage. My real name is Robert Elias. I feel like I’m still looking for a home in some way.
I’m sure there were times when I wish I had thought, ‘Gosh, that might really embarrass mom and dad,’ but our parents didn’t raise us to think about them. They’re very selfless and they wanted us to have as normal of a college life as possible. So really, we didn’t think of any repercussions.
My mother is gay. She was married to my dad up until I was 9. She was just like, ‘I’m tired of this. I’m just going to be with who I want to be with.’ So I’ve been raised by women, through my mom and also my aunt. My aunt is bi, and most of her partners have been women. I was always surrounded by a very strong tribe of people.
Something a lot of people don’t know about me is I sucked my thumb until I was in like eighth grade. It’s cause, when I was a baby, I sucked my thumb and I guess my mom and dad never weaned me off of that, because they thought it was cute. And then it’s like an addiction. That’s your security blanket.
My mum and dad ran a family cafe in Sligo for 35 years and worked long hours. We grew up in a very hard-working family and had a lovely atmosphere, as we lived above the restaurant. It definitely made me want to work hard, whatever I chose to do. As the baby of seven kids, I was definitely a bit spoilt.
My favorite thing about ‘Saturday Night’s Main Event,’ it was that one time where I could stay up late with my dad and four brothers, and we would all beat the tar out of each other while the show was on, and it was all okay because my dad was a wrestling fan.
My dad had a commercial film company, so he had a videotape player before anyone. So he got Mel Brooks movies or Citizen Kane or some classic old movies. And every summer the revival house in Evanston would show the great films from the ‘50s and ’60s and ‘70s.
My father was a country music singer and a motion picture actor, Tex Ritter, and I sort of had a normal upbringing, except dad would come down in full regalia with the boots and the guns and the hats, and the horse would eat with us. But other than that, it was pretty normal.
I’ve always wanted to buy a sports car. After the England series, I went up to my dad and said that I wanted to buy a sports car and got his consent. On his birthday, I surprised him by bringing it home. It’s a Porsche Boxter Limited Edition, and my family was thrilled to see it.
The house was big enough for my brother and me to have firecracker wars at one end and leave Mom and Dad undisturbed at the other. When firecrackers weren’t available, we attacked each other with pennies and marbles and clumps of Crisco, which made brilliant greasy asterisks when you missed and hit the wall.
My dad has an incredible passion for living life, and he’s really, really funny, so he definitely encourages me to enjoy all aspects of life. He’s very proud of me and definitely encourages my career path, and we have a good time talking about work.
‘The Lucky One’ features a young concentration camp survivor named Peter Rashkin – who’s about the age my dad was when he started at CBS – working at the Oyster Bar, trying to acclimate to his new country and outrun the memories of the daily he left behind.
My mum was very glamorous, an incredible seamstress. She made up those Vogue, Givenchy and Yves St. Laurent patterns they used to sell. It was church couture, darling! Because my dad was a pastor, she could get away with more than other women. Her skirts were that bit tighter.
I had a fairly enlightened dad, though if you looked at his resume, it might not seem that way. He was a chartered accountant for Price Waterhouse. He was strict, and we had a very ordered life. To this day, I am the least materialistic person I know, because my father didn’t raise me to just go out and buy this or that car.
Both my parents were Democrats. My dad was definitely more of a fiscally conservative traditional Democrat. My mom was more of a feminist Camelot Democrat. They definitely had an idealistic view of life as it should be in the United States. And they had a sense that government had to have some hand in making people’s lives better.
