My dad was a football player - a soccer player - for Manchester United and I loved playing football but I also happened to be the guy in class who was pretty good at sight reading. My teacher gave me scripts and I was very comfortable.

I had my heart set on becoming an English teacher but stumbled into acting after meeting a theatrical agent in my dad's restaurant in San Diego.

My dad remembers being in school with my uncle and the teacher would say outright to the class that the Japanese were second-class citizens and shouldn't be trusted.

My humanitarian work evolved from being with my family. My mom my dad they really set a great example for giving back. My mom was a nurse my dad was a school teacher. But my mom did a lot of things for geriatrics and elderly people. She would do home visits for free.

When I was in nursery school the teachers asked me y'know 'What does your dad do for a living?' So I said 'He helps women get pregnant!' They called my mom and they were like 'What exactly does your husband do?'

My father was my teacher. But most importantly he was a great dad.

I'm still shy - I'm no good at my children's parent-teacher conferences and I'm slowly learning how to ask for what I want. But I now know that I have a reserve of courage to draw upon when I really need it. There's nothing that I'm too scared to have a go at.

It's cool for me because I'm a director but I'm also a teacher. I'm a lover of cinema and I love working with people who are hungry and have the energy to really do better work.

In my school people liked the gym teachers because they were the football or soccer coaches. But look if they're cool they get respect.

When I left Europe in 1987 I did so with the thought that my relevance as a composition teacher would benefit from a certain cool distance to certain tendencies I had been observing for several years with increasing disquiet.

If you improve a teacher's self-esteem confidence communication skills or stress levels you improve that teacher's overall effectiveness across the curriculum.

You have to come in and be that character when you walk into the room. That's what one of my first acting teachers taught me. You know don't go in there being Jennifer and then expect to flip and change because they're not going to have that imagination.

One good teacher in a lifetime may sometimes change a delinquent into a solid citizen.

Teachers can change lives with just the right mix of chalk and challenges.

In America the schools have become too permissive the kids now are controlling the schools the tail is wagging the dog. We've got to make a change there and get it back to where the teachers have control of the classrooms.

We are taught you must blame your father your sisters your brothers the school the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change.

My happiest memory of childhood was my first birthday in reform school. This teacher took an interest in me. In fact he gave me the first birthday presents I ever got: a box of Cracker Jacks and a can of ABC shoe polish.