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My house was filled with music. We had a piano, and my brothers and sisters played instruments. Even though I was around it, I played basketball.

I grew up in a house where there was lots of teasing and language play and laughter; it was very important. When I was a teenager, you wouldn't go to a bar and find lots of televisions everywhere. People were talking. Talk was the mental fire you would gather around in the evening. It occupied a big part of your existence.

There was always music playing in the house. I started singing at three, like my sisters did. When I was around four, we decided to put together a group and had so much fun with it.

I grew up playing music and enjoying good food, friends and family in my own backyard.

I had fun coming every day and playing in front of a packed house - it was exciting.

When I was little, I put on plays for my family at Sunday dinner, and I would direct them and have all my cousins, my brother, and my best friends in it. I was a very imaginative and theatrical child and wasn't afraid of being in front of a camera. It was like make-believe to me.

I'm the youngest of five kids, and I wanted attention. And in Santa Barbara, there was lots of theater going on, so for that area, it was a little bit like playing Little League baseball. There were dance classes, theater classes, and I just loved it.

I was in a Montessori school. There was a drum circle with all the kids passing around a little bongo drum. I was the last person in the circle, and when it got to me I played 'Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits' - in front of all the parents. Blew the crowd away at five years old.

My childhood was very gregarious, and I was usually surrounded by close family.