Childhood Decision Quotes

I announced to my mother one day when I was 8 that I wanted to be a serious actress.

My parents have been incredibly supportive from perhaps the first real independent decision I made to become a vegetarian at 11, which was certainly not consistent with their diet at the time.

I first decided that I wanted to act when I was 9. And I was at a very bizarre prep school at the time; to say 'high Anglo-Catholic' would be a real English understatement.

At 11 years old I made a very definitive decision. And my decision was that I wanted to be happy.

When I was nine, I started doing ballet. That's when I knew that I was down to keep doing it.

At nine years old, I was presented an opportunity to move to Toronto to train for pairs dancing. As soon as I heard that that's what it entailed, I was out of there. It's like a past life. I hung up my skates and never looked back.

I took some classes in sign language when I was in my early teens because I was told that I would be completely deaf very early. But I never really wanted to learn.

At age 12, it was obvious. I had to go to Space Camp.

I was watching tennis on TV, and between games, they were showing a commercial for a tennis school. I wrote down the number, gave it to my mom, and said, 'This is what I want to do.' She thought it was a joke, but I was very stubborn, and I kept bringing it up.

I think there was, like, a childhood moment where I had to pick shoes, either non-marking or marking shoes. The marking shoes were Spider-Man shoes. I'm like, 'Well, I want the Spider-Man shoes.' But I also didn't want to mark the court; I want to be able to play. I chose the generic, non-marking shoes.

I chose my pen name when I was ten, because I knew even then that my legal name would be more trouble than it was worth.

I met Picasso when I was a kid. I turned one of his drawings down which would be worth £37 million now. My dad wouldn't talk to me for a fortnight.

When I was 13, I would come visit my aunt and uncle in New York. I decided I wanted to live with them after seeing my cousin's school. Honestly, I just wanted to go to a school where I didn't have to wear uniforms, and my mom said okay.

Already in go-karts, I said, 'OK, that's what I really want to do professionally as a career, as a job.'

I decided I wanted to be a physician when I was seven years old.

I went away when I was 9 to a ballet school. I thought I wanted to be a dancer, but eight years of ballet cured me of that.

I first became a vegetarian when I was nine, in response to an argument made by a radical babysitter. My great change - which lasted a couple of weeks - was based on the very simple instinct that it's wrong to kill animals for food.

I decided to be a filmmaker when I was 12. I had utter clarity that this would be my life.

When I was 12, I decided I was only going to watch Westerns for a few months.

My dad didn't want me to play guitar. He played piano, so I chose that. And I ended up loving it.

My manager always brings up this fact that when I was 10 and first met her I said I never want to do movies and TV.

Because of what I did when I was 10 years old, I'm not living from paycheck to paycheck, and I can do things because I want to do them.

As a kid I decided that a Canadian accent doesn't sound tough. I thought guys should sound like Marlon Brando. So now I have a phony accent that I can't shake, so it's not phony anymore.

I was born in North Carolina but moved to a suburb just outside of Philadelphia when I was 5, so mostly grew up there. I decided I wanted to become an actor when I was 8 years old. I literally heard a friend on the playground bragging about how he was taking acting classes and thought, 'Oh! That's what I'm supposed to be doing!'

I always wanted to be a designer and always felt surprised as a child when my sister used to deliberate about whether to be a nurse or a teacher.