My mum was my inspiration. As cliche as that sounds, she was the reason that we started. She chose cycling to lose weight. I was only eight at the time, so I just followed what my mum did.
My mum had four kids on her own, so if I had one kid with one nanny and not a full-time job, it would be a joke. And I think the impossible happens when you leave your kids. I’ve seen so many nannies in the park on their phones, and the kids are running off.
My mum was a quintessential businesswoman. She taught me problem-solving. She can solve any problem.
I never had any plans to become a producer when I was a kid. I wanted to be a DJ, like most other kids at the time. Then my mum bought me a Casio keyboard and I started to sample sounds that I liked.
There are absolutely no problems between me, my dad and my sister. Obviously I grew up with just my mum, but my relationship with my dad is just fine.
Mum asks why I am so often cast in adulterous roles. I think it must be because I am fairly flirty.
In a broken marriage, it can be challenging and tough to get that work/life balance. I love performing but I also love being a mum, and I hate having to choose between them.
One day Mum saved up for this exciting new thing – a frozen chicken. She cooked it on the Sunday and we all sat around waiting for it, but there was a terrible smell from the kitchen. She didn’t realise that the giblets were in a plastic bag inside it. We just ate vegetables and she cried and cried.
My dad had been in the second world war, had electric shock treatment, suffered from anxiety and was abusive to my mum. I kept a lid on my feelings at school but, when I was 18, dropped out of everything and couldn’t even be bothered to get out of bed.
My father came to England from India in 1957, and my mum came in 1960.
So finally, I can feel a sort of pride in all my family – Mum, Lynn, Corin, Tasha, my cousin Gemma – because, I think how wonderful that this troop of gypsies can carry on telling stories.
I’m the joke of the family with cooking because I’ve never done it – primarily because I’ve been surrounded by people who are so good at it. Mum’s brilliant. Boyfriends have always been good at it. I’m waiting for my inner chef to be released.
For four years, my mum allowed only church music in the house.
I can remember hearing the theme tune to Dallas when I was supposed to be in bed. I would sneak down and try to watch it through the banisters. My mum loved that show.
I grew up making music in my mum’s basement, and I used to tell her I was going down there to work, and she’d say, ‘That’s not work. Go get a real job!’ It took me signing a record deal to change her opinion!
We’ve got so many different cultural groups in my family that I’ve had to learn to accommodate them in different ways. My father speaks different to my mum. My mum speaks different to my grandmother. Everybody speaks different, so you find you start tweaking your language to be more accessible to people.
My parents don’t have a lot of money, and it was only when my mum’s mum died that we could buy Fernandez, my first grand prix horse.
I’m not great with money. I’d go crazy if I were left to my own devices. My mum and girlfriend sort it out. I’m not driven by it, but I love to be generous.
I have a good shopping relationship with my mum. She lets me buy, and she spectates. I take advice from her, and I give it, too.
You hear horror stories about scary mothers who just want their kids to be famous. I could be waitressing in a restaurant, and my mum would be happy as long as I was happy.
Whenever a car would come down the road, my mum would tell us to hide ‘or else the welfare man would take you away.’
I definitely want to be a mum. Lots of my friends are having babies, but I don’t know quite when to do it. My mum says, ‘There’s never a right time; you’ve just got to get on with it’.
My mum told me once I was a Hindu.
That was the toughest thing I ever had to do: tell my son that his mum was gone. I was a bachelor living on the beach, but I had to pull it together very quick for my boy.
I try to balance it out on the whole. Being a mum is always the priority. Next, it’s taking care of yourself. Right now, I get to only work two days a week – it’s a dream. I can’t imagine how hard it is for mothers who work 40 hours a week.
Dad was a very gentle, sweet man. Mum was the matriarch and the patriarch of the family. She ran the roost with a steel fist, but at the same time there was respect and love for her.
I can say, out of my whole life, my dad left the situation at an early age for me; he left. But my mum turned her back on me.
My dad was a civil servant, and my mum was a secretary.
I Skype my mum every day. Everyone in my family does creative things, so it’s nice to have that support.
The divorce is a regret of mine and my mum thinks that we should have stayed together. He’s now remarried so there’s no chance of us getting back together.
I love being a mum. Sophia is so funny and has a great personality.
It was quite a thespian – ‘thespy’ – sort of household. My mum had a dance school, and my dad now works in a theatre, so I spent a lot of time going to see dance as a young child – it was just a part of who we were.
Mum and Dad paid me 50 pence, which was a lot of money when I was 8 years old, not to dye my hair.
I wanted to be something and prove to girls in high school, and to my mum and dad, that I could be really… spectacular.
When I started to play tennis my mum told me to enjoy.
My dad’s from Barbados, but I lived with my mum. She brought me up; my uncle took me to the football. I grew up in a white family, I’d say.
Computers tend to separate us from each other – Mum’s on the laptop, Dad’s on the iPad, teenagers are on Facebook, toddlers are on the DS, and so on.
I love being a mum, but it’s much more intensive work than being an actress – going to work feels like you’ve got a day off. Not that I want a day off from being a mum; it’s just perhaps I had this impression before that mums don’t work. But they work more than anyone.
I’m part Maori. My mum’s Maori, and she raised me. And my grandma, she’s Maori.
My mum has lived in Australia for 22 years now, and we have a rocky relationship. But at the same time it’s one I want to maintain. I need her to be my mum. The relationship took a lot of rebuilding.
I always feel honored to meet people who ever met my mum. It means a lot to me.
Everything I do in my life I do to make my mum and dad proud. I want to carry on in my dad’s footsteps and make sure that his legacy lives on forever.
Being a Mum is a big job.
I always imagined a writer was someone who lived in an attic in Paris, but my mum instilled in me a belief that I could do anything – so I ended up writing my first novel while working nights as a news reporter.
I have to thank my mum for kicking me out at 16 and making me stand on my own two feet – that’s how I got here.
My grandfather was a lawyer, my dad was a lawyer, my mum was a lawyer, I got an uncle who’s a lawyer, I got cousins that are lawyers.
I had some difficult times when I first moved to Los Angeles when people would tell me I was saying things wrong. I felt different although my mum kept reminding me it was OK to be different.
Instead of the Beatles and the Stones, my mum and dad were listening to Michael Jackson, Barry White.
My mum used to tell me when I was a kid that I had to go to bed at 7.30 P.M., and when I’d ask why, she’d say, ‘Well, you do get a bit grumpy when you don’t have routines’. Then I realised, when I was a bit older, that’s actually true.
I was brought up with beautiful music – Nat King Cole and Glen Miller from my dad, and my mum loved Judy Garland and Doris Day – brilliant stuff. Through my brothers and sisters I heard David Bowie and The Specials, The Carpenters, Meatloaf and The Rolling Stones.
Sometimes… I can’t believe what mum says or does when she’s being really dramatic.
I’m not an interior designer – I’m a normal working mum who wants her house to look good and doesn’t need a man to do it for her.
Laugh at yourself – a lot. My mum taught me not to take myself too seriously.
Journalists have always written that my mum said that I punched a hole through my cot when I was three years old. I don’t remember doing that, and I think it was more that I was very energetic.
I used to do a Saturday drama group called Young Blood Theatre Company with school-friends in west London – nothing to do with my mum and dad. A casting director came to pick people out for a new BBC children’s series called ‘MI High.’ She picked me, I auditioned, and I got the job.
I love being around my family. I am very close to my mum, my brother, my grandmother, my aunts – we constantly poke fun at each other, but it’s all done out of love.
Eliza was my first name for two reasons. My dad was reading ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ which features the maid Eliza in it, when I was born. Then there was Eliza Doolittle from ‘My Fair Lady’ and ‘Pygmalion.’ My mum always loved the name, and I got called Eliza Doolittle a lot, so it stuck, basically.
Mum did a lot of commercial theatre and farces in the 1980s and ’90s to make sure the school bills were paid.
When I was eight, my mum found me humming to myself and scribbling on a scrap of paper. When she asked me what I was doing, I got shy. I was writing a Christmas song, and I had never shared my music with anyone before. Reluctantly, I sang it for her… and she loved it. Of course she did – she’s my mum.
