Dinah Manoff

I wear a St. Christopher medal. On the back it says: 'Good luck, good luck, good luck - Mama.' ”

When I like myself, which is not too often, but when I do like myself on film, it's when I point, and I go, 'Look what she did! She did the funniest thing - look at her!' Where I can really separate back from it and I don't see me anymore, then I'm really excited. That's, like, really fun for me. That jazzes me. ”

I found out my limit. I'm not a singer and a dancer. ”

I loved being a troublemaker. At Santa Monica High, I would smoke on campus, go barefoot, anything. ”

Mother was so good that I was defeated even before I started to be an actress. I thought I could never make it unless I spent years in the Actors Studios, went on the blacklist and lived in New York, as she did. ”

I remember unbelievable tension in our home. There were lots of meetings, lots of worries. I remember my father told me I had to be careful of what I said on the phone because it was tapped. And I remember how his friends adored and revered him. ”

My mother is a hardcore actor's actor. She's not a celebrity. She really isn't... And so her main concern was that I not fall into the auditioning-is-my-life syndrome. ”

My mother used to ask me to stay home from school and keep her company. I'd fake I was sick, and she'd fake believing me. ”

I think that from 15 to, like, 18, I went through a very rough time. Something basically everyone goes through in those years - not knowing what you're going to do. ”

I am my father's daughter: I have his language, his expressions. ”