I recently saw this home video where my brother is playing this character Arsenio Grimley, who is a mix of Arsenio Hall and Ed Grimley - which, clearly, is my parents' doing, because he's, like, 10. He's the host, I'm every guest, and then my dad is Elton John. That was a Saturday night.
My dad was never married. He was kind of a rolling stone. But he was never disrespectful. At the same time, even though he had women in his life when I was a kid, there wasn't any consistency.
My dad came over from Ireland when he was 13 and lived on the streets, working on building sites, and has just retired from his job delivering furniture for John Lewis. My mum has had the same job for 30 years as a sales assistant at Marks and Spencer. They've always been really great; they just want me to be happy.
My dad used to say, 'Just because you dress up in a coat and tie, it doesn't influence your intelligence.'
My grandmother was an actress too. In the thirties and forties she was under contract with Universal Studios. Crazy credits, lots of them. My dad was also under contract with Universal Studios. And my first film was shot on the same stage they both worked on at Universal.
My mother's a psychologist, my stepfather's a psychologist, my stepmother is a therapist and my dad's a lawyer. So it was all prominent in my life. I don't know anyone who doesn't know someone on some form of prescription medicine.
When I was 18, I thought my father was pretty dumb. After a while when I got to be 21, I was amazed to find out how much he'd learned in three years.