I've been playing live since I was in sixth grade.
Acting was something that I grew up just doing. I certainly never thought about it.
When I was a kid, I didn't know how I got into acting.
When I started in news on the 'Six O'Clock,' I was 36 and felt very inexperienced.
I knew I wanted to be a rapper when I was, like, 5.
I got my start in small dive bars in New Orleans.
Strings have been a part of my career and my albums since the very first day. 'Snowbird' had beautiful strings.
When I started out doing comedy, I was still in college and was working day jobs. I taught preschool for a few years. And then I got more into freelance writing. So stand-up has always been my primary independent creative mode of expression. I've done it my whole adult and young adult life.
For the first 25 years of my career, I did nothing but sing and dance.
I always used to watch 'The Daily Show,' and there were all these comedic geniuses there. I didn't know if I was going to be hired full time or not. At the beginning, I was sort of hired as a part time, on and off guy. When I first got hired - it was August 2006 - and I was working on and off, and they'd call me whenever.
My whole career began because I was always putting my music on the Internet. By the time I had my first tour, I had an audience everywhere I went, because people were listening online.
When I began my career, I had films with the biggest film-makers in the country.
Starting my career as a kid, I was doing what jobs I got.
I made a sort-of living in the beginning of my acting career as a reporter. I think my very first job was 'Early Edition' as reporter no. 1, and for 'Light It Up,' I was reporter no. 2.
I started working in front of the camera for the first time when I was 15 years old. I joined a soap opera. We filmed in Brooklyn and I would skip class to shoot my scenes. It was terrifying and I entirely self-conscious in front of the camera.
When I was getting started, I was so busy just fighting my way through, and I was under contract at Warner Brothers. I did 40 hours of color television with the late Robert Taylor as a young cop.
Unfortunately my career began in Hollywood, doing a negative pickup for Universal pictures.
After graduating, I began auditioning for films while continuing to model. I did a few fashion shows, ad shoots, and even got a few Bollywood offers, but nothing great.
My mom was working through my childhood, so I would be running around Mumbai from one dance class to another with my mom carrying the tape recorder with me. I would sit on the sidelines and watch her teach dance.
I got my first professional job at Harvard, at the Loeb Drama Center, and I remember sitting on campus one day under a tree - I was doing 'Threepenny Opera.' I was reading a book, and the light caught me, and I thought, 'I want to be in the movies.'
When I was 16, I was in a film called 'The Patriot.' I spent every second I could on the set watching the director and his team bring America circa 1775 to life. From that moment on, I was hooked.
I never was one to go into an office and write. For one thing, I had a job. I was cleaning the ashtrays and setting up the studios at Columbia for a couple of years and working every other week down in the Gulf of Mexico flying helicopters. I didn't really get to just write songs for about five years.
When I first did theatre, I was always doing comedies; it was always my first love. But it wasn't what I was picked for at first, for films and TV.
Great as my dad was - I would never have gotten my first job announcing if I didn't have the last name Buck - it's my mom, Carole, who has made the biggest difference. She was on Broadway back in the 1960s. She understands entertainment, has incredible instincts.
I started out in gospel music. A lot of people don't know that I started out in gospel music, and I've never lost sight of it.
