When I was a little kid - and even still - I loved magic tricks. When I saw how movies got made - at least had a glimpse when I went on the Universal Studios tour with my grandfather I remember feeling like this was another means by which I could do magic.

My childhood was influenced by the roles my father played in his movies. Whether Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad in the 'Grapes of Wrath ' his characters communicated certain values which I try to carry with me to this day.

As far as writing I like watching bad movies. Nothing stops me in my tracks more than watching a great film like 'The Godfather' or 'Dog Day Afternoon' or 'The Graduate.' You watch one of those and you never want to write again. Whereas with bad movies it makes you think If that counts I certainly could write.

Going to the movies was a big event in my youth. My father would be the initiator - he'd have me put on a jacket to see a film.

I wasn't allowed to go to movies when I was kid my father was a minister. 101 Dalmatians and King of Kings that was the extent of it.

When I was a little boy I used to borrow my father's hat and make a press card to stick in the hat band. That was the way reporters were always portrayed in the movies.

I never really got nightmares from movies. In fact I recall my father saying when I was three years old that I would be scared but I never was.

When I was twelve I went hunting with my father and we shot a bird. He was laying there and something struck me. Why do we call this fun to kill this creature who was as happy as I was when I woke up this morning.

This enraged the other Nazi so much that the next morning he came to our house and he shot my father.

As we moved along in a little procession I was delighted with the illumination of the streets. So many lamps and they burned until morning my father said and so people did not need to carry lanterns.

Your enjoyment of the world is never right till every morning you awake in Heaven: see yourself in your Father's palace and look upon the skies the earth and the air as celestial joys: having such a reverend esteem of all as if you were among the angels.

Because my parents growing up they worked hard. Everyone in my family woke up early in the morning. I used to see my mother and my father go off to work and come back and no matter what they had time for the kids.

The greatest job I ever had was working on my family farm. Each morning my father would come into my bedroom around 4:30 am and command me to get up and work the fields. I would spend the next two hours before school slopping pigs and cropping tobacco.

We hear the stories every day now: the father who puts on a suit every morning and leaves the house so his daughter doesn't know he lost his job the recent college grad facing up to the painful reality that the only door that's open to her after four years of study and a pile of debt is her parents'. These are the faces of the Obama economy.

To be intimate with a married man when my own father cheated on my mother is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife.

Unlike my grandfather or my brother I've actually been able to make some money at a racetrack.

But my mother and father were married when my mom was 20 and my dad was 24.

Just recently I was in Target with my mom shopping and out of the blue I see this father and his two daughters and he says 'Can they get a picture with you?' And I'm thinking to myself 'Am I the one millionth customer or something?'

My parents were both in show business. My father was an actor my mom an actress and both singers dancers and actors. They met in Los Angeles doing a play together and so I grew up in a show biz family.

My mom and father are extremely proud. They love it when I don't die. I've done so many movies where I've died that their first question when I book a job is 'So are you going to die in this?'

My father left... but I tell my mom - and I told my mom this when I was a kid - I said 'You know what Mom? Good thing he left because you're a strong woman.'

My parents and my grandfather on my mom's side would travel the earth. They went to Australia and China and they went to probably every soccer game I ever played.

The most important thing in my father's life? World peace. Me and my brother. My mom.

My mom sang in high school choir and so did my father.