Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father during all those many days, and weeks and months when I didn't see my own father.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I never suffered from the absence of a father. On the contrary, as a child I was more inclined to see men as a disturbing factor. It made things difficult for me when I started working as a director.
I remember seeing my father only twice as a child for brief visits. As I grew up, I invented a father who was larger than life - stronger, smarter, more handsome, and even holier than other men.
I thought I could never be the actor Dad was, so I avoided it for a while.
I don't think I was all that late in becoming a father.
I grew up with the one of the most famous fathers in the world in the 1960s and '70s. He passed away in 1984, and as time went on, people didn't know him. That blew me away.
Unlike my mother, who was unashamedly delighted when I decided to become an actor, I always feel that my father, had he lived longer, might have been a touch disapproving of some of my career - I think he might have tutted a bit at 'Men Behaving Badly.'
I never knew my father. He'd disappeared from the scene before I was born, and I still have no idea who he is. Perhaps strangely, it's never bothered me; I certainly don't believe it's really affected me.
I did not have a father. It was my mom who chose to be alone. She felt that she would be better off by herself with me after I was born.
As an actor, it's a very strange adjustment to start playing the father. I was used to playing a kid my whole life, and then all of a sudden, it's like, boom. I guess when I let my hair go grey, things changed.
I had my father, and he was an amazing man and an amazing role model, so I always wanted to mirror that.