I grew up with my grandfather [Elia Kazan] being famous in a way that's not like Beyoncé, but famous in a relative way. It made me feel weird about the way that we treat people that are famous, and it made me feel weird about fame in general.
Going back to Georgiana Drew and John Drew, and my great-grandfather Maurice Barrymore, and it was such a sort of circus of odd, interesting people that loved acting.
I think someone in the union has the right to a private vote, and that's why I'm anti-card check. I grew up in a union family. My grandfather was a coal miner; he was in the union.
I've been writing about my boyhood, when I was a little kid back on my grandfather's farm where we didn't know about black widow spiders or all that stuff. But writing about that is so easy.
My grandfather told me that I should have a series of headshots, one with a tennis racket, one dressed as a naval officer, and one dressed as a cheeky chappie. He said, "If you have those headshots, the world is your oyster. "
My grandfather was a Russian-Jewish immigrant who lived in Northern Ireland and apparently when he sang in the synagogue he made everyone cry.
My grandfather was a voodoo priest. A lot of my life dealt with spirituality. I can close my eyes and remember where I come from.
My grandfather was an autoworker, and I have a weapon he manufactured to protect himself from the company that he would carry to work. It's a big iron pipe with a hunk of lead on the head. I think about how far we've come as companies from those days, where workers had to protect themselves from the company.
In high school I was leafing through an anthology that our teachers had given up and I found a poem, I go, "That's so strange. This poem looks so much like my grandfather's poem. "
My grandfather used to say I don't care how you talk about me, good or bad, just don't leave me out of the conversation.
Like lycanthropy, the nerd gene can skip a generation. My maternal grandfather was a technophile.
I carry in my datebook a piece of paper that my mother copied out for me, from the 1840 Census. Hardy Callaway Culver of Hancock County, Georgia, had 42 slaves, 31 "employed in agriculture. " Culver was my great-great-great grandfather. I carry this piece of paper with me every day because I don't want to forget. I don't know what to do with the information, but I don't want to forget it.
All my forebears worked for a living. My grandfather painted portraits. My mother too. My aunt painted seascapes.
My grandfather was a lawyer, my dad was a lawyer, my mum was a lawyer, I got an uncle who's a lawyer, I got cousins that are lawyers.
My great-grandfather, Karl Wallenda, was my biggest hero in life, my biggest inspiration behind everything I do.
Every time you recall a memory, you're basically making another copy of it and at that same point it is susceptible to new changes and adaptations. So, you know, if you remember from when you were, you know, in second grade and there was Christmas and you got a present from your grandfather and your mom was wearing a red dress, that may or may not all have happened.
My dad had been an actor. . . not only had my dad been an actor, but his dad had been an actor, and my great-grandfather had been an actor. And who knows before then?
My grandfather has been very depressed lately. He just doesn't know what to do. He says it's late in the game, and he's afraid that life has him beaten. " "Tell him to take out the goalie.
My grandfather was a provider. Work, any kind of work, was the joy of his life. So I grew up having a certain relationship to work. It was something that I always wanted.