I was a late bloomer, and that was my issue growing up.

The teenage years are my least favorite, though my son is phenomenal. He does not get in trouble, and he's not a bad kid. But the fact that they think they know so much.

I want everybody to know that I don't care who you are, where you're from, if you're popular or not: we all have haters. But you have to be resilient. You have to not allow them to have the power over you, where you start believing the things they say.

There's so many different ways to get yourself out there, a lot more options than when we first came out.

There's the job and then there's my family. There's very little time beyond that for friends.

Food was always a big part of my life. My grandfather was one of 14 kids, and his parents had a pasta factory, so as a kid, he and his siblings would sell pasta door to door. After he became a movie producer, he opened up De Laurentiis Food Stores - one in Los Angeles and one in New York.

I was the first one in the family, on either side, to go to college - much less graduate school.

In the case of 'Ocean at the End of the Lane,' it's a book about helplessness. It's a book about family, it's a book about being 7 in a world of people who are bigger than you, and more dangerous, and stepping into territory that you don't entirely understand.