I don't feel I was ever a 'famous' child actor. I was just a working actor who happened to be a kid. I was never really in a hit show until I was a teenager with West Wing playing First Daughter Zoey Bartlet. In a way that was my saving grace - not being a star on a hit show. It kept me working and kept me grounded.
I'm learning as I go. I don't know everything. I never had anybody to look at nobody ever taught me and where I'm from I didn't have any famous role models.
While we are being fascinated by the tales of famous serial killers and how they were brought to justice the real serial killer goes about his business with hardly a thought to being caught.
I studied Hitchcock a little bit at University and knew the famous story about the Birds - that he'd tortured Tippi for a day using real birds. I had no idea that it was a five-day onslaught and that it was the tip of an iceberg that carried on through to another film.
Hitler was so modern in that he was obsessed with being famous. He was caught up with this rush to be have achieved greatness before turning 30.
Humans have a fraught relationship with beasts. They are our companions and our chattel our family members and our laborers our household pets and our household pests. We love them and cage them admire them and abuse them. And of course we cook and eat them.
It's one of the worst-kept secrets of family life that all parents have a preferred son or daughter and the rules for acknowledging it are the same everywhere: The favored kids recognize their status and keep quiet about it - the better to preserve the good thing they've got going and to keep their siblings off their back.
My family truly believes they are better cooks than I am. They see me as Giada not as a celebrity chef. To them I'm just me - their granddaughter niece etc. and they're older and wiser. I like that because it keeps you grounded.
I grew up in a family of strong women and I owe any capacity I have to understand women to my mother and big sister. They taught me to respect women in a way where I've always felt a strong emotional connection to women which has also helped me in the way I approach my work as an actor.
I only tour in short bursts I'm only ever away from my family and three daughters for a month or two.
My own mother always taught me that fairness was a family value - I think equal pay is about fairness for everyone.
Growing up I was taught that a man has to defend his family. When the wolf is trying to get in you gotta stand in the doorway.
I understand what it's like to come with your family and to uproot yourself and come to another culture. You need a lot of support. People say 'She's got her daughter she's got her husband.' Yeah but she hasn't got anyone else.
My wife my family my friends - they've all taught me things about love and what that emotion really means. In a nutshell loving someone is about giving not receiving.
I had a really wonderful upbringing. We were a tight family. It was wonderful to grow up with so many siblings. We were all just a year or two apart and we were always so supportive of each other. I learned everything from my older brother and sister and taught it to my younger sisters.
I came from a poor family so working and going to school at the same time was natural. It taught me multi-tasking although we didn't call it that back then. I learned I could never be idle I need to be doing many things at once.
I was raised by a single mother who made a way for me. She used to scrub floors as a domestic worker put a cleaning rag in her pocketbook and ride the subways in Brooklyn so I would have food on the table. But she taught me as I walked her to the subway that life is about not where you start but where you're going. That's family values.
My mother's love has always been a sustaining force for our family and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity her compassion her intelligence reflected in my daughters.
Like all my family and class I considered it a sign of weakness to show affection to have been caught kissing my mother would have been a disgrace and to have shown affection for my father would have been a disaster.
Denzel's quality I think is his faith. You have all the action in your head and you have to believe in it and just do it. That's what he does and that's what he taught me to do.
It is from the traditional family that we absorb those universal ideals and principles which are the teaching of Jesus the bedrock of our religious faith. We are taught the difference between right and wrong and about the law just punishment and discipline.
We're very open and outspoken about our faith and our beliefs. We also talk about our doubts our moments of insecurities. We talk about it all day how we're inspired by God. We recognize little miracles every day and that's how we're raising our daughter.
Laughter kills fear and without fear there can be no faith. For without fear of the devil there is no need for God.
Women have been taught that for us the earth is flat and that if we venture out we will fall off the edge. Some of us have ventured out nevertheless and so far we have not fallen off. It is my faith my feminist faith that we will not.
As a proud Catholic I know the impact that faith-based education can have in our society and have witnessed it first hand in my district.