When I was seven, I asked my mom if I could be on TV, and she said if I really wanted to, I could. I got an agent and booked my first audition.
So, from a very young age, my mom tells me that I wanted to be Michael J. Fox. I didn't want to be an actor. I just wanted to be Michael J. Fox for awhile. And then, I realized that he was an actor, so I pursued that.
Because of my unique experience as my mom's child, the beginning of my journey was more about me trying to figure out who I was on my own. My mom is one of the greatest moms and so supportive of all my siblings and of all of us being who we are, and not who she wanted us to be.
I'm extremely blessed to have the extraordinary mother that I have, and I don't mean Diana Ross, I mean the mother. My mom paved a road that didn't exist, as did Oprah.
Part of the reason that I moved to Los Angeles is that even though my mom introduced me to all kinds of music, I really wanted to work on having my own identify, on being who I am and doing what I do, and seeing how people responded.
I usually travel with a lot of people, like my dad, mom and sisters.
Oh, my mom. She's one of my biggest fans.
I was born to a Nigerian dad and a Kenyan mom, and coming to the States was really academic.
My earliest memory is seeing Michael Jackson in Melbourne with my sister when I was about ten. I still have this souvenir stick with a glove that would light up and make a peace sign in a bunch of different colors. I'm so happy my mom didn't throw that out.
When I was young, I had two older sisters, and since I was the youngest in my family, my mom took me around with her all the time. I was forever with her when she was having coffee in the middle of the afternoon with her three sisters. And they would talk about men. I absorbed a lot of that.
Growing up I always shopped at Victoria's Secret with my mom and saw Angels like Gisele and Karolina Kurkova in the windows.
My dad was Jewish. My mom is not. So I was not raised anything.
Losing my mom at such a young age had a profound effect on my life.
Everyone in my family is an artist. Both my parents are painters and my mom's an opera singer. I was never shown any other way to process life.
My Mom is a ballet director, so I had this idea in me that classical training is the best foundation for anything you do, so I wanted to get a classical background and voice.
I think there's a danger of a being typecast as the all-American mom forever.
When you become a mom you just learn how to function sleep deprived and you do get used to it. I came back to work when Finley was three months old and the first few months were rough. Then somehow you learn to exist on no sleep and now when he does upon occasion sleep through the night, which is like a full six hours, you're pretty sure he's suffocating. So you don't sleep anyway.
You eat and sleep it all day long and play on the streets until mom calls you in. My story is no different than anybody else's.
I had really great parents who always gave me lots of opportunity for choice, but I didn't always realize how rare that was for a girl for them to say, 'You can be a mom or have a career or do both or do something we haven't thought of yet.'
My mom and dad put my brother and sister through university and they were very keen for us to have an academic background just to give us a chance.