My neighborhood was normal. I had a neighborhood where everyone knew everyone. Typical American upbringing. Sometimes we got into trouble, but everyone watched after each other, so if my parents didn't see me making trouble, another family would tell them.
I grew up snowboarding in two of the best states for the sport: Colorado and Utah. The world-class ski mountains in these neighboring states were key factors that allowed me to represent our country in two Olympics and numerous X Games.
It became the joke of the neighbourhood. If the umpire ruled me out on a bad call, I'd take the fake eye out and hand it to him.
I grew up originally in Rochester. It was where I was born and a very tough neighbourhood with a lot of violence. I consider myself lucky. When I was aged 11, in 1998, Dad moved us to a suburban area from what was a ghetto area. It gave me a chance of survival.
I grew up in a neighbourhood where there was a lot of fighting. It's what boys did during school, during recess, after school. And I was a fairly large kid. So everyone wanted to see if they could take me on.
Raising awareness for Nepal was and still is an important role for me.
I have climbed Everest from the Nepal route and the China route. The other routes are too hard for me. So I don't think I can climb Everest again.
My first nephew, he couldn't say Auntie Nicole, so he called me Coco. So ever since then, everyone's called me 'Coco.'
I have three incredible nieces and a nephew who's going off to college. To hear them say they're proud of me left me in tears.
I had a sister who was killed in a motorcycle wreck when I was around 4 years old. My parents adopted her son, and so my nephew became my brother. He was three years older than me, so through him, I was exposed to hip-hop.
I think kids don't like me much. Even my nephew used to cry when he was a kid and I used to go close to him. I don't know what they are sensing from me, I have only love to give.
Becoming a mom has really thrown me for a loop. I figured I had this job in the bag because I took care of my brother and my nephew. No way!
But, the truth is and we can argue about whether this is right or not as long as we want to, but the fact is that women really do spend more time with their families. Until I can find a man who can tell me the dates of all of his nieces and nephews birthdays and get presents out to them regularly, I'm going to stay by that statement.
Basically, one of the hardest things about being an actor is getting your first break. I'm a product of nepotism. The doors were open to me. I'd done several movies before I decided what I wanted to do.
I grew up believing my sister was from the planet Neptune and had been sent down to Earth to kill me.
I grew up believing my sister was from the planet Neptune and had been sent down to Earth to kill me. I believed this because my sister Emily convinced me of it when I was a toddler. I think she'd seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers and her imagination ran away with her. There's a part of me that still believes it.
People that were a little nerdy in high school would look up to me and know it gets better.
It's superficial that people think I'm cool because I wear certain clothes and I have tattoos. The funniest part is, when they get to know me, they're always surprised by how nerdy I am.
It's always nerve-racking to take off your clothes on film. But doing it with a woman felt safer than with a man. You know you can say, 'Don't grab me there: That's where my cellulite is'!
What's easy to forget once you're minorly famous is how nerve-racking it is to walk up to someone famous and interrupt them. When I'm taking a picture with a fan, it's not uncommon for their hands to be shaking or for me to feel their heart pounding through their rib cage. But the best part is how easy it is for me to make someone's day.
