Mom

My mom wanted me to be a youth pastor, and when I became a comedian, she said it was close enough.

You see people, you judge. It's just the human thing to do - good or bad, it's a fact. Like when you get a coffee at Starbucks and the person is rude to you. My mom always says, 'Yeah, but you don't know what kind of day they're having.' You don't know the back-story, and that's why it's so fun to be an actor and to get into the back-story.

Getting home-made food cooked by mom is a blessing. I feel I inherit my creativity through the food she cooks for me.

Every kid needs to say, 'I want what my mom and dad have.'

My dad was a professor, and he had a Fulbright to teach in Venice, so we lived there when I was really little, and then we moved to Detroit, like you do. But then my parents split up, and my mom had just fallen in love with Italy, so she decided to move back to Torino.

My poor mother. Every time I get a job, she asks, 'Am I gonna have to watch you kiss someone again in this one?' and I say, 'You're probably gonna have to watch me kiss someone in most of them, Mom.'

You only get one mom.

My mom didn't write, but she loved to read. She liked books 'that made you a little nervous.' Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Peter Straub were the three wise men of our family bookshelf.

My mom got 11 kids. We struggled.

I've changed in my sympathies since I've become a mother myself. In high school I went through a period where I was close with my mom and had to break with her in order to find myself and come back. Since that was my experience, that's often what happens in my books.

I've got three sisters, five aunties, and my mom. It must have had an influence on me growing up.

It was probably in third grade - I had a super-fake gold herringbone chain. Yeah man, it was, like, super fake. I don't remember if it was my mom's or how I got it, but ever since then, I've loved chains. The first real chain I got was from Kanye. It was a Jacob the Jeweler Kanye West Jesus piece.

My mom has beautiful eyes, and I inherited a lot of her rituals, accentuating eyes.

I've always wanted to be a mom. I had a great relationship with mine. I'm ready to pass on to my child all the great love that my mom had for me.

My mom is a very religious woman. So when I began recording music, I was afraid she wouldn't accept it. But when I played her a song, she loved it.

I used to tell my mother, 'Mom, when they write really flattering things about your son, don't believe it all. And when they write really negative things about your son, don't believe it all.'

A part of me understands why a mother is equally proud of all her children, but that little boy inside me just wants my mom to say, out loud but even just to me, 'I'm a little bit prouder of you.'

As a mom, it's so important to feel confident in what you're doing.

It was a sad process for me to become a mom, and a long process. I felt so embarrassed that I couldn't have a biological child.

When I was 20 years old, my mom flew me for my first Broadway audition for 'The Color Purple,' and I only found out about it because I knew that Fantasia was in it, and so I went online to ActorsEquity.com. I was not a part of the union, but I flew there for the audition, and the next week I made my Broadway debut!