My mother and I are more than best friends; we are partners in crime. After she and my father, Quincy Jones, separated when I was 10 years old, my sister, Kidada, who was 12, went to live with our dad, and I stayed with my mother.
My father was Catholic, my mother was Protestant, and because of that I got Christened in both churches, so I've got all these names. . . but my Dad always called me Mick.
When I was growing up, there was always somebody who wanted to pick a fight with me. I'd say, I'm not a famous boxer, my father is. If you want to fight somebody, go fight my Dad.
That was when the world wasn't so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.
It's a mission for me to make sure that philanthropy doesn't feel like a vintage hand-me-down from mom or dad. I want people to feel compelled to do something positive because they just love it, they're excited about it, and it's cool.
I never wanted to be an actor. My dad was an actor, and he never brought joy home, so I didn't view it as something that I would want to do. But I got fired as a secretary, and then I started studying, I started doing it just to earn money. And it took me a long time to learn to love it. And what I loved was telling a story. I tried to avoid making plays or films that weren't telling a story that I felt was important. I discovered in the process that it makes you more empathic because you have to enter someone else's reality and learn to see through many other people's eyes.
As I was walking up the stairs to dad's old room, and I was looking at the photographs, I started thinking that there was a time when these weren't memories. That someone actually took the photograph, and the people in the photograph had just eaten lunch or something.
I have issues with inheritance tax, particularly coming from a migrant family. My dad has worked incredibly hard all his life, so it seems odd to me that someone who has gone through that experience and has managed to save then gets taxed for dying.
I'll probably always be 'Timothy Spall's son' and it's something I'm proud of. Maybe one day as well as that, they'll say of Timothy Spall that 'He's Rafe Spall's dad'.
Dad's Theory of Arrogance--that everyone always assumes they're the Principal Character of Desire andor Loathing in everybody else's Broadway Play.
My mom was a waitress, and my dad was a plumber who worked for the City of San Clemente fixing mains breaks, so not too glamorous.
I was 12 or 13, and I had seen a demo about origami at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. My dad, my step-mom, and I were at the Japan pavilion of Epcot, and my dad was going to get me an origami book. They had these really sick origami books with an overleaf, but those packs can sometimes blow, because they give you, like, eight sheets.
The only important thing I have to say is that my father never fought against his country.
I worked with my dad for 15 years. I apprenticed under him and decided I wanted to become an architect. So I went to college for it and then the acting bug got me.
Dad's are the treasures of the world!
See, I've always seen Jacques Cousteau as a hero, mate. He's a legend - like my dad, just a legend. And so what he did for conservation in the '60s through the '70s was just phenomenal.
I remember once giving my dad some drawings and writings and said, 'If you could just give these to the publisher, that would be great. ' And I was about five!
Our shows have always been sort of an all-generations thing, people from 6 to 60. The other night, we played a show and we had a woman who was probably 70 to 75 years old, and she was there alone and she was singing every song. On the other end of the spectrum, there was a 7-year-old on his dad's shoulders and the dad is singing along.
I just sit there and make up songs and sing to [my son] in gibberish. I'm very good at gibberish now.
My mom fed us a million balls. Dad took us to tournaments. Couldn't have done it without them. We had a happy tennis family.