I moved out at 18. I always studied classes and trained a lot, you know. I think nowadays is such a different time because there's so many channels promoting the celebrity aspect of things.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I feel like I almost didn't grow up in the business, because my parents worked so hard at sheltering us from that. I was raised in Connecticut. And I honestly wasn't aware that my dad was a celebrity until I moved to Los Angeles a year ago.
At first, I didn't hang out with celebrity kids. That wasn't the way I was brought up. I went to a run-of-the-mill Catholic primary school when we first moved to L.A. But then I went to a high school where there were lots of 'industry' children. Those weren't my best friends and I've never set out to make myself a part of that scene.
I grew up as normally as any other kid. Between that small TV part I did at five and when I turned professional actor at 18, I stayed away from the limelight, so I was just like any typical kid who went to school.
I grew up watching movies and television, and one day when I was really young I told my mom I wanted to become an actor, and she was really supportive and got me involved in local theater and commercials. From there I moved up to auditioning for movies and television.
I was an English major at UCLA when I was 18, and then I left after a year to start acting. I was educating myself during that time.
When I first moved out to L.A., I was still 17. The deal with my dad was that I would be able to live out there if I were to treat my acting classes like college classes. So when I moved, that's all I did: trained and auditioned.
From the time I was 16 to really up until turning 21, the roles were really, really few and far between. I had people say that I just wasn't a good singer. They didn't know what to do with me; I would never fit in any markets. I almost quit acting altogether.
When I started in the late nineties, it was all about young Hollywood. There were jobs for all of us if you were 18 to 21, were slightly good looking, or could be funny.
I was about 26 or 27 and it was imperative that I make a living right away and it's hard to make a living on stage, so I started in television and film.
I left school at 17 and was a star by the time I was 18 - in certain parts of the world anyway.