When I turned 11, my dad decorated a room at the Standard hotel in Los Angeles in a '60s, Austin Powers style. There was human bowling: You run inside a giant inflatable ball and try to knock down pins. To this day, adults say it was one of the craziest parties they've ever been to.
I just went off for two months traveling around Europe on a motorcycle and pretty much turned my phone off. I did 5,000 miles with my dad. We went through Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Italy... and then I did Spain and France by myself.
My mother taught public school, went to Harvard and then got her master's there and taught fifth and sixth grade in a public school. My dad had a more working-class lifestyle. He didn't go to college. He was an auto mechanic and a bartender and a janitor at Harvard.
My dad was an auto mechanic, but we moved to Fort Worth, where he worked in defense, building B-24s.
'Nil By Mouth' was a bit autobiographical, but as I always pointed out at the time, that's not my dad.
Mickey Rourke's character in 'The Wrestler' - that was my dad, that was my uncles, that was so many members of my family. It was the only thing they knew. And then they would end up wrestling for a hundred bucks, go to autograph signings for two hundred bucks.
When mom and dad were at the height of their careers, and things were super-crazy, and they couldn't leave their houses, there wasn't social media. It was all about autographs. Now, everyone's the press. I feel fame is perforated: it can be glorious, but it can completely destroy a human, too.
As a little boy, I wanted to be a policeman. And then as I got older, and I saw my dad in the car business, an automobile executive.
As a child, I lived in Germany at the Ramstein air force base, where my dad sang at a nightclub in Kaiserslautern. My parents couldn't afford a babysitter, so when I was, like, ten or 11, I would go with them to the bar until two in the morning.
My dad didn't want me to go for drama in school, so I chose the closest thing to it and got a bachelors degree in Communications at the Manhattan College.
I'll back up anything my dad says.
My parents had a difficult divorce. My dad had to take a backseat for a few years, and my grandfather came in. He was also my inspiration for becoming an actor. I really respected him.
During the Depression, my dad made radios to sell to make extra money. Nobody had any money to buy the radios, so he would trade them for dogs. He built kennels in the backyard, and he cared for the dogs.
I had a real bad attitude after my dad passed of liver cancer. I was 9, and we were really close.
I stayed in Baghdad every summer until I was 14. My dad's sister is still there, but many of my relatives have managed to get out. People forget that there are still people there who are not radicalized in any particular direction, trying to live normal lives in a very difficult situation.
I wasn't expelled for anything vicious, just being cheeky, not doing what I was told, answering back, and always rising to the bait if someone said something annoying about my dad.
My dad would always play Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and Anita Baker, so I fell in love with them. I would try to make my voice sound like theirs.
My father was grounded, a very meat-and-potatoes man. He was a baker.
My dad actually makes the best cookies. My mum is great baker, too, but doesn't share them - it's tantalising! Luckily for me though, my dad shares his!
Most young people haven't used their storytelling skills since they were 8 or 9 or 10 and wanted to persuade Mom and Dad to take them to the ball game.