Once I took a bus from my home in Maryland to Philadelphia to live on the streets with some musicians for a few weeks, and then my parents sent me to boarding school at Andover to shape me up.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My parents divorced when I was seven. Because divorce is messy, for good or ill, they sent me to boarding school.
I went to a boarding school when I was 13, and it was a very arty school, so there was an opportunity for a lot more. I joined a band and so on. We would do concerts at school, and I would play cover tunes and thought, 'This is really great.'
I grew up outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a little town, and went to a regular high school. I was a... very average student in that high school. Then I joined the Navy, and while I was in the Navy, I was in a motorcycle accident and woke up deaf in a hospital.
My parents, who were split up, were so good at keeping my environment strong and keeping everything around me not focused on the fact that we were poor. They got me culture. They took me to museums. They showed art to me. They read to me. And my mother drove two hours a day to take me to University Elementary School.
When I grew up as a kid, a part of my life - I grew up in Boston near Revere Beach, at my grandma's, and she would take me to the beach.
I had great schooling, and my parents were always in front of me, or next to me, or behind me, making sure I had whatever I needed.
I went to a failing school, and by the grace of God, my mother was able to put me into private school, and had she not, I would probably be in a gang or dead right now, because that was the road I was going down.
I went to a school called Tring Park School for the Performing Arts. I went because initially I was very naughty, and my mom thought if I was busy, I'd be better. And I didn't really do acting until later on in the school, with an amazing teacher. I left, went traveling, came back.
When I was 15, my parents left town for a month. They hid the keys to the car, but I found them. That month, I drove my stepdad's Thunderbird Super Coupe into Manhattan every day, and I would crank Cypress Hill as I flew around the city, racing the taxis.
I ran away from three different boarding schools before joining a circus school, and eventually I became an actor. The only thing I learned at boarding school was never to send my child to one.