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I was always jealous of my violinist friends and cellist friends who traveled with their instruments.

My father was a trained accountant, a BCom from Sydenham College and a self-taught violinist. In the 1920s, when he was in his teens, he heard a great violinist, Jascha Heifetz, and he was so inspired listening to him that he bought himself a violin, and with a little help from an Italian teacher, he learned to play it.

As a child, I studied violin. My sister, who's 10 years older, was the actress in the family. I was painfully shy.

I would also like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age.

I came from a huge extended family of musicians.

My dad is a gentle and brilliant Iranian violinist.

The people who raised me musically are my mother, who is a classically trained pianist, and my stepfather.

My mom says that my dad coerced me into choosing the cello. He says that's not entirely true. I don't remember; I was three.

Genetically, I have tons of musical background in my life. My mother's father was a famous Weimar-era composer, Ernst Toch. My father's mother was the head of the Vienna Conservatory's piano department. It all canceled out in my case. I'm completely hopeless in music.

My brother, who's a violinist now, was the real ham, the real performer of the family. His passion for the violin is the only thing that kept him from being an actor.