My parents were opera singers and voice teachers, so growing up, I admired musicians and dancers.
People came to my parents' parties because they were going to have fun and, if lucky, our mother would belly dance. What they didn't know was that the hostess made sure every morsel placed in front of them was pure and without anything artificial, no matter what the cost.
I was never the kind of girl who said, "One day, I am going to be a beautiful bride, and I am going to have a family." I wanted to work and support myself and make my parents proud. All I did was work. I did three or four films a year, and felt like I was on a treadmill. Finally I said, "Nothing is exciting to me anymore." So I took six months off, which turned into a year, and said, "God, I don't miss it." That's when all kinds of interesting things crossed my path.
I'm very musically inclined. My parents were opera singers. As a young child, I could hear operas and I knew if they were sad, or if they reminded me of something, or they brought back a memory.
I was raised in Washington, DC in a household where one parent was a Republican and the other was a Democrat, so I got both sides.
The thing I remember the most was not understanding why, if you were doing the right thing, then why did people want to kill you? I remember asking my parents, 'Why is it when people are trying to help other people then they're dying?'
I watched a documentary about Freedom Riders. One young woman told her parents, 'I'm going to leave college to ride and represent the future.' I thought, 'Who would do that now?' Who would do that for my son?"
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