We certainly had our moments when I was growing up. But the great thing was, if Mom was working on a night shoot, she'd be up making breakfast before school.

The arts are the most uniquely suited to provide young people with critical-thinking skills, problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration, empathy and tolerance and compassion, looking at the other point of views.

The arts give kids the building blocks with which to then play.

My mom's coping mechanism was to be strong and resilient. She is very compassionate and nonjudgmental.

My interactions with my family members are all one-to-one. We don't all get together for Thanksgiving dinner. But I can sit and tell any one of them about a conversation that I just had with the other one, and they're all curious and interested and respectful.

The thing about my fridge is, it's a family fridge, so there's a little of something everybody likes in there.

In fact, when I fought the 1996 election, being Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's daughter, it has its own plus and minus, so I told my father, 'please don't come for campaigning with me'.

My mom keeps me going, man. She deserves such a good life. I just wanna give it to her. My dad, too. My family, my friends, they keep me motivated. Just knowing my personal legend, just knowing what I'm supposed to do, that keeps me going.