How often do I call my mom? You can never call your mum enough, and I should call my mum more often. But I speak to my mum very regularly and have a close relationship with my parents.
On my mother’s side, I’m English, so that’s where the freckles come from. On my father’s side, I’m German, and he has the fantastic olive hues… I was given mum’s skin, whereas my brothers and sisters were given my dad’s skin. I do tan up quite well, but it takes me a bit longer.
To me, I have my friends who I’ve known my whole life, and I can count them on one hand. They’re people I went to school with, my mum’s friends’ daughters. You know?
I drove my mum and dad mad.
My own mum cared about Hollywood, and I didn’t. I wanted to act, and I loved the creativity of it, but I didn’t care for the lifestyle.
My parents being Bengali, we always had music in our house. My nani was a trained classical singer, who taught my mum, who, in turn, was my first teacher. Later I would travel almost 70 kms to the nearest town, Kota, to learn music from my guru Mahesh Sharmaji, who was also the principal of the music college there.
At the age of 16 I was already dreaming of having a baby because I felt myself to be an adult, but my mum forbid it. Right now, I feel like a teenager and I want to have fun for one or two more years before starting a family.
I’m very different to my mum. I’m not as beautiful as she is, nor – she probably despairs about this – as groomed. I certainly rebelled against her idea of looking well turned-out. I spent several years with a shaved head in jeans and baggy shirts.
When I was born in 1970 with a rare genetic disorder called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SED), medical science wasn’t what it is today and my mum and dad were treated terribly by the medical profession.
My mum did really well raising me and my brother by herself. I know it was a struggle, and even from a young age, when I was boxing, it was always to make my mother proud.
My mum had me brought up by nannies and governesses. I didn’t have much to do with my parents until I was 21.
I grew up being very interested in Greek mythology because my mum read to my sister and I.
I think being a mum gives you extra qualities. I’m more feisty, fiercely protective and less selfish. The main trait I want to instill in my kids is kindness. I think it’s the most important thing. If you’re kind, you’ll go a long way.
The old man sold beer after hours on weekends. And that was something that he probably did to top up his earnings as a truck driver. Mum was the traditional housewife. Loving, caring, sharing – always the keynotes of the family.
My family keeps me sane. I try to talk to my mum every other day. After I get off the phone, I have a renewed sense of clarity, so I guess a problem shared is a problem lost. It’s important to me to keep them close.
I think probably the whole reason why I wanted to be on television was to show my mum that she was making a mistake. That I was amazing. Look at me, I’m worth something. Look at me.
I don’t want to achieve less than my mum and dad.
My mum told me that grown-ups don’t like teenagers, which is the last thing you want to hear when you are one yourself!
Kylie and I were both taking piano lessons at the time and didn’t think of acting. A friend rang mum up and said, ‘How about bringing Kylie and Danielle in because they might be right for the part?’
I’ll be having lunch with my mum and she’ll complain about the paparazzi outside. I tell her that she could have worn a beanie, but of course she never does. She loves it – it’s how she chooses to connect with people. That’s fine, I can respect that. But I’m the opposite. I always have been.
I was a shy kid, but somehow I knew I would make it as a performer. I’d always be telling my mum that I was going to be a famous singer. In my school yearbooks I would write, ‘Remember me when I’m famous.’ I knew I had a gift.
I saw my aunties and my mum give up a part of themselves and their dreams to have kids. There were things they wanted to achieve in life, but they had kids instead.
My mum and I are, in many ways, quite similar. We’re both creative, gregarious, and energetic.
When my dad was still playing, he was away for five years on and off, so it just used to be me and my mum at home until my little brother came along when I was five.
My kids don’t slow down, but they like to hang just with us, with mum and dad. They play with us and we play, too.
My mum was very glamorous, an incredible seamstress. She made up those Vogue, Givenchy and Yves St. Laurent patterns they used to sell. It was church couture, darling! Because my dad was a pastor, she could get away with more than other women. Her skirts were that bit tighter.
My mum is a fashion inspiration to me. She always goes to great lengths to get ready in the morning, from her hair to her makeup to her nails, and matching her suit with her shoes.
But while mum and dad were incredibly caring, it was also a very chaotic household where everyone fought about everything. So I know what it’s like to internalize all that chaos.
Mum, who had been a dancer with a small ballet company before she got married, was full of encouragement. She didn’t say, ‘This is really good, you should do this’, She just encouraged us to do whatever we liked.
My mum used to ride, and when she was mucking out, I always wanted to sit on a horse. And if she took me off, I’d scream my head off.
My dad’s in banking, my mum manages the American branch of a Swiss vitamin company; they’re really busy, but they still come to all my premieres.
My mum was one of those people who really wasn’t allowed to be an artist, because she worked in a factory and she came from the war and all that stuff. She really has an artist’s soul.
If I honour my needs first, I will be the best wife, the best mum, the best sister, the best friend. I have to come first, because then everyone benefits.
I have found clarity in my head and heart from being a mum.
I completely and utterly rely on my mum. Without my mum, I would not be anywhere at all. I’d literally just be a couch potato.
Mum put me in drama classes when I was about 14. I’d been going on about it for some time, so maybe it was a way to shut me up.
My mum is very driven and has always kept me busy… She used to say to me, ‘Nobody likes a teenager. So use your teenage years to work. Then enjoy your life when you’re slightly older.’
When I went through some racism through my early days and I went back and told Mum… she said, ‘Don’t worry about that, they’re just ignorant.’
Being busy with work, and as a mum, I’m a big fan of online shopping.
I don’t think I ever once heard Mum utter a religious or spiritual sentiment, a considerable feat considering that she was married for 57 years to one of the most prominent Catholics in the country.
I like the idea of a family, but I don’t know that I’d like to be a single mum.
Mum had done everything you need to educate a kid. She made me a kid who likes books and she told me about ‘Wind in the Willows’ and read it and I thought this is weird, Rat, Mole, Toad and my first ever Bolshie thought – you know about ‘The Wind in the Willows.’
Call me an over anxious, middle-class mum, but my eight-and-a-half-year old son looks very much, to me, like he’s headed for a life of crime.
Mum doesn’t like it when I mention that Dad’s a better cook than her. He was born in Spain and spent eight years in Portugal and is exceptional at lots of cuisines.
I don’t care where you went to school. There – have I made your day? No? All right, I’ll go further: I also don’t care what your dad did for a living or how your mum voted. Nor do I mind whether you ate your tea in front of the telly, dinner at the kitchen table, or supper in the dining room.
Mum wasn’t at all religious, but she thought that going to the theatre was as important a ceremonial, communal experience that a person could have.
My dad is an art director for BBC TV shows, and my mum does screen printing workshops. Both of my parents played instruments, too, and my mum used to have crazy house parties when me and my brother were young – dub and garage would be banging through my house.
I came out of my mum’s stomach going, ‘I want to be an actor!’
I just always really wanted to swim. It was always a family thing: dad obviously swam, and my sister did, too. And mum used to come along to meets. They had to drag me out of the pool – so there was never any pressure on me to swim. It was just something I loved doing.
I’d be the best mum ever. I would. I’ve got great training from my mum.
You see these casting directors’ lists of characters, and they’re all boxed in. Twenties is the hot girlfriend, thirties you can still be hot but moving swiftly to hot mum. Forties, you’re the legal person in a pantsuit. Then, once you reach your fifties, you’re positively elderly.
I remember in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I had to do a scene where I broke down. And before we filmed I spent like three hours imagining my mum’s funeral. Actually, she’s very much alive, happy and healthy. It was really horrible.
We lived in the schoolhouse of the village school in Church Preen, in deepest Shropshire, and my mum was the schoolmistress. She taught the juniors, and one other teacher taught the infants. I went there from the age of three, no doubt as a form of childcare.
