I was who I was in high school in accordance with the rules of conduct for a normal person like obeying your mom and dad. Then I got out of high school and moved out of the house and I just started for lack of a better term running free.

Keep in my mind my dad didn't become a huge huge mega actor until I was halfway through high school - so right around the time he's going through his big renaissance is right when I'm starting to do my high school revolting.

'Keep your head down at school.' Those are sage words from my dad. They kept me in check for years.

And then before going back for my sophomore year I decided to change my major to arts and sciences and my dad cut a deal with me: He said if I'd quit school he'd pay my rent for the next three years as if I were in school.

My dad remembers being in school with my uncle and the teacher would say outright to the class that the Japanese were second-class citizens and shouldn't be trusted.

My parents moved to American Samoa when I was three or four years old. My dad was principal of a high school there. It was idyllic for a kid. I had a whole island for a backyard. I lived there until I was eight years old and we moved to Santa Barbara.

My mum was raised Jewish my dad is very scientifically minded and my school was vaguely Christian. We sang hymns in school. I liked the hymns bit but apart from that I can take it or leave it. So I had lots of different influences when I was younger.

My dad was the manager at the 45 000-acre ranch but he owned his own 1 200-acre ranch and I owned four cattle that he gave to me when I graduated from grammar school from the eighth grade. And those cows multiplied and he kept track of them for years for me. And that was my herd.

I wanted to perform well for my mom and dad because in high school I didn't have a job. My brothers they worked at Pizza Hut or places like that but sports that was my way of giving back.

You always give credit where credit is due - to high school coaches college coaches - but my dad the foundation that he built with me is where all of this came from. The speed the determination the mindset just the natural belief that you can do anything you put your mind to it all comes from my dad.

My senior year of high school when I was getting recruited for college my dad goes to me 'You can become an Olympic champion.' And that's the first time that I'd heard someone else say that to me. I was like 'Uh are you talking to me?'

In my case I was born to parents who were very young and I don't think they were entirely ready to have a child. My dad was going to college and working two or three jobs at the same time and my mum was working and going to school.

I was always the new kid in school I'm the kid from a broken family I'm the kid who had no dad showing up at the father-son stuff I'm the kid that was using food stamps at the grocery store.

Baseball is the president tossing out the first ball of the season. And a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm.

After graduating from flares and platforms in the early 1970s I started drama school wearing a pair of khaki dungarees with one of my Dad's Army shirts accessorised by a cat's basket doubling as a handbag. Very Lady Gaga.

I had the opportunity to go to law school and my dad who was an accountant couldn't believe I wanted to walk away from that and start cooking.

In a school where everyone is famous or rich or whatever you have a culture 'What does your dad do?' 'What does your mom do?'

The founder of the Mona Foundation actually knew my dad for years and the more I learned about it the more I realized I really found the perfect charity. It sponsors schools and educational initiatives all over the planet.

Within our culture every school has a swimming pool. We lived on the coast. People swam in the surf. It's a very sporty nation and at that particular time anyone who had an artistic bent was very much an outsider. So if you liked reading or ideas or playing the piano then your dad viewed you as a sissy basically.

I met Gemma my wife when she was 12. She had a schoolgirl crush on me and her dad had arranged for her to meet me. Later she started coming to my concerts but I only got to know her well after her mother died. I rang to see how she was and that's how it started.

I say this as a young dad seeing children going into primary school: I don't think we should underestimate the formative effect on a child of those first years in primary school.

My mom and dad met at Anaheim High School. After they got married all they wanted to do was have four children and they did.

My dad was dean of fine arts at the university. I was casting bronzes in the school foundry. I was using the university as a playground.

My dad was a labourer and my mum had exactly the same job as Noel Gallagher's mum - she was a dinner lady at our local school. Everyone comes over from Ireland and they get the same jobs.