I can remember, after I started doing films, my mum began going to more arthouse films. She went to see ‘Edward Scissorhands’ and phoned me up and said: ‘What was that all about? He had scissors on his hands.’ Good question. I think she should review films on Channel 4.
I didn’t have any role models really. My best friend was a dog. My mum and dad saved a dog from the gutter and that dog was my brother before Jesse was born. Sami was his name and he was my role model.
My mum is totally crazy for fashion still.
My mum and dad were speaking all the time about, ‘In Sudan we do this,’ and ‘In Egypt we do that,’ so I was very aware of cultural differences. I was confused growing up; it gave me a feeling of being an outsider watching others. But I think this is good for a writer.
I’m terrified of flying and have tried everything from prescription drugs to booze and herbal remedies. The only thing that works is Valium. I don’t know why I’m so frightened – I think it’s from seeing my mum freak out when I was young.
I’m going to take care of the man I’m with. I grew up in a household where my mum takes care of my dad – she cooks, she does everything – and that’s the kind of girl I am.
I look fine. I’ve had no surgery apart from an operation I had decades ago to remove the fat under my eyes. My mum looked 30 when she was 60, so I guess I owe it all to genes and hair dye.
Losing a parent is a hard thing… I often sit here and think it would be great if mum and dad were alive and had a chance to see their grandkids grow up.
My mum is a bit unconventional; she’s outdoorsy and has more of an emotional intelligence, whereas my dad is pragmatic; he’s a businessman.
As a kid, I was a dancer in Dick Whittington, Snow White and Cinderella. When I was 14, I played Baby Bear. I had a big head on, and you couldn’t see my face. My mum was very disappointed.
I only went into a gym by accident. My mum couldn’t get a babysitter and wanted to do aerobics, so she took me and Kurtis, my younger brother, down to the gym. There was an after-school boxing class on with some of the kids from school. There weren’t any other girls there, but I didn’t mind. I loved it.
I used to sing Chaka Khan tunes in the car with my mum when I was eight years old.
My mum was a wonderful mother. She died, aged 80, of Alzheimer’s disease, which was dreadful to watch. I remember she said to me: ‘Believe in yourself because no one else is going to do it for you.’ I’m sure a lot of my success is due to her words of advice.
Mum tries to make every race that she can.
Money was tight and Mum used to do two jobs to support us.
I don’t like cutting my hair. I did that once, and my mum thought I was a boy.
When I was younger, I was like, ‘I want to be on Playboy.’ My mum was a Playmate.
My family were great story-tellers. My mum was one of 12 and they were all fighting to tell stories. You have to tell a good tale or no one is going to listen. You have to make it entertaining and interesting. That’s how I learned to tell stories.
I loved being away from school. I didn’t really fancy school that much when I was little; it wasn’t until I was in third or fourth grade that I really settled down at school and I was much happier at home with my mum and she was very creative and sort of fostered all my interests.
My mum told me, ‘At that moment when you know you can’t do both, the marriage and the kids, choose the marriage because you’re going to be spending your whole lives together, so you have to put a lot of work and attention into the relationship.’
My mum thinks I’m amazing at everything. That unconditional love is just the most precious thing you can have.
My brother thinks it is very, very bad that I left Islam. My half-sister wants to convert me back; I want to convert her to Western values. My mum is terrified that when I die, and we all go to God, I will be burned.
I thought that if I could play rugby on TV, I’d be able to get my mum a house. That was the driving factor.
When I am in Madrid, I just like to see my friends and walk around the city. I go to the school where my mum works and help out. My plan B, if acting doesn’t work out, is to work with disabled children.
Mum passed on her cooking skills to all her children.
My mum – and my granny and I – would close the curtains, turn on the TV and snuggle up and watch ‘Come Dancing.’ It was actually my granny who was the biggest fan; she loved the show, and she passed on her passion for it to me. I loved the dancing but also the frocks and the glamour.
I actually hated dancing. My mum used to have to bribe me to go by buying me things. A year before I stopped going, I was going to go for an audition with the Royal Ballet. It turned out I was a year too young. Because I was tall, they thought I was older. But before I had the chance to go back, I quit.
I was terrified of being a mum because I didn’t think I’d ever be grown up enough.
I haven’t been baptised. My dad’s not in the church and is not a religious person. My mum is more spiritual – she does Thai-chi and goes to Stonehenge and things like that. I’m proud to be pagan. Finland is not really a religious country. I’m still looking for my god.
When I was about 4, my mum had a lime-green Versace jacket with massive shoulder pads, and I remember thinking, ‘Why does her head look so small? Why is she doing that to herself?’ But she loved it!
I love the smell of a real Christmas tree – also, my mum’s Christmas pudding with brandy sauce.
The physical DNA has always been part of our family. My dad was a good boxer and gymnast; my mum is a ballroom dancer, and my brother does martial arts.
My mum always said I devoured ‘The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe’ at the tender age of four, but frankly, I think that might be a touch of maternal exaggeration.
To be honest, I was Mum’s boy. Always was, always will be.
Growing up, we didn’t have anything. My mum wasn’t well, so I was in three care homes then foster homes before me and my little brother went back to her. I was passed from pillar to post.
Raw parsley makes me gag. It’s the same for my mum and my sister. Which is funny because apparently parsley was used to suffocate witches, back in the day.
I never promise anything. I don’t promise anything to my mum. I don’t promise anything to the supporters.
I went to my mum at about seven or eight and said I want to start acting, but the week before, I had said I wanted to do ballet. She said if I took acting classes for a full year, she would look further into it, and that’s how it started.
My mum and my husband are from Irish backgrounds, so we have a lot of potatoes. Chips, mashed, boiled, new potatoes, I love them all. Even the slightly wonky ones like Duchess potatoes that go up in a little spiral.
I was mainly raised by a working mum who didn’t have much time or inclination for making food. So I had three or four basic meals: fish fingers and a tomato; a packet scotch egg and a tomato; pasta with a tin of tomatoes; and extra mild plastic-y cheddar chopped into cubes with bits of cucumber.
When I went to college, my mum was really sad, so she preserved my bedroom, like a weird time capsule.
I’m just very grateful that the media has been so kind to me, because there’s nothing unusual about me. I’m just a mum and a granny who is teaching cookery on TV. Basically, I’m very ordinary.
I go home and don’t get treated any differently. People have known me all my life and are interested and very supportive but because they have known me forever I don’t get any diva treatment. My mum still tells me off if I haven’t loaded the dishwasher for her.
My dad’s family were political and he was always a theatrical creature, whereas my mum is really musical and her father was the touring pianist with Nat King Cole. My family was an explosive mixture of politics, religion and music – no wonder I turned out how I did.
My mum’s American. She’s from Detroit.
Mum and Dad split up when I was nine. We upped and moved from London to Sussex, and suddenly I went from an urban life to nothing in the countryside – with a new father and new life.
There are different types of love, and my love for my child is like me and my mum. We’ve gone through a lot of rocky patches, but we never stop loving.
I lived in Peckham for the first 12 years of my life and then my mum and dad decided they really didn’t want to bring up their children there. So they saved up money and bought a house in Plumstead, semi-detached, three bedrooms.
As a kid I would be put to bed when my parents had guests and because I was such a show-off I would go to my mum’s room, put on her nightdress and Jackie Onassis shawl, run downstairs, go outside, ring the doorbell and pretend to be one of the guests. I’d say, ‘Hello, I’m Mrs. So-and-So.’
I’m not great at dealing with death, I have to say. I find death very hard: my mum, my dad, Sid Vicious. I’m not a monster; I feel it and it scares me. One death at a time, please, is all my heart will bear.
My mum, she loves a bargain hunt. You can’t buy her anything expensive. I remember I bought her a diamond bracelet for her birthday. I was being a nice son! She told me to take it back.
My mum was massively important to everything I’ve done, and now her memory is a motivational tool for me.
For my first Bollywood movie, ‘Ekk Deewana Tha,’ my mum also came over because Mumbai was completely new to me, and I’d heard it’s a huge city.
