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My dad keeps joking about sneaking into my grandparents’ house and switching out their HBO for PBS so they think I’m on ‘Downton Abbey.’
The best advice my dad ever gave me is that acting is believing. Acting is not acting. It isn’t putting on a face and dancing around in a mask. It’s believing that you are that character and playing him as if it were a normal day in the life of that character.
My dad never told me that when you audition, you might not get the role. He wanted to wait until my first disappointment to tell me.
My parents loved each other. I was raised in a house of total love and respect. My dad worked very hard and my mother was incredibly devoted to him. I can unequivocally, without any peradventure of doubt, tell you that I was raised with the kind of love that we only dream of.
For my birthday this year, my girlfriends – who knew I’d just inherited my dad’s turntable – gave me a carton of albums like ‘Blue Kentucky Girl,’ by Emmylou Harris, and ‘Off the Wall,’ by Michael Jackson. It’s all stuff we grew up with. I mean, you can’t have a music collection without Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ – it just can’t be done!
Dad is my best mate and I can tell Mum absolutely anything. I really appreciate Mum and Dad. Why are we so close? Young parents, I think. The rock business keeps their minds young.
I wasn’t aware of my dad being an actor when I was young. I remember there was an Australian children’s entertainer on television called Ralph Harris and when I’d say my father was an actor, kids would say, you know, ‘oh, is he Ralph Harris?’ And I had to say no and then they would lose interest.
He described how, as a boy of 14, his dad had been down the mining pit, his uncle had been down the pit, his brother had been down the pit, and of course he would go down the pit.
I’m probably going to get in trouble for this but ‘American Dad’ is one of my favourite shows. It gets very dark in places but the jokes are there.
My dad is this very sensible guy who never let me feel that anything was beyond my station.