My mom was the breadwinner in my family. I always thought, 'That's how it is.' I never thought that was the exception.

My mom always said I was the peacemaker in the family. My older brother, Eric, was the leader, the creative one. I was just his puppet.

What I heard my mom always say was that, while she was never naive, she understood the FBI's intent was, obviously, to break up the family.

Whenever I've not known what to do, I've always gone back to the Carter Family because there was nothing like singing with my aunts and my mom to my grandma.

Mom was always doing something for somebody. She came from a Czech background, one that made her a devout Catholic and gave her a strong belief in the family.

I was probably five when I first picked up a camera. My mom had an Olympus OM-10 that she carried around to document our family photos. And I just always loved it.

I have been a pampered boy, the youngest in the family with two elder sisters. I have always had someone around me, usually my mom, to take care of everything for me.

She liked to drink. Some in the family want to make more of it than that like maybe she needed drinking to take the edge off, but that was the way I always saw it: Mom liked to drink.

None of my family are musicians, but there was a lot of classic rock and country going on. I always wanted to sing. As soon as I expressed an interest my mom was super supportive of me.

When I was going on auditions, it was nerve-racking. I'd always say to my mom that it would be awesome if I could get a series. When Modern Family came along, I said, 'You know what, Mom? I believe I'm going to get this role.'

My mom broke the mold. She put my brother and I first, always, and worked her fingers to the bone trying to provide for us. She taught us right from wrong and gave us very strong morals and values and belief in family, things that have stayed with me.

If you go from a structure where you have the support and that partner and that construction of a family and that's broken apart, I think that's probably a lot harder than always being a single mom and having the father being a support in another area.

My mom is the kind of mom, when we would go to a friend of the family's house, and they would offer us something to drink or offer us something to eat, my mother would always say, 'Tell them no.' You could be starving - you could be dehydrated - but as kids, we were supposed to tell the host, 'No.'

It's tough growing up where I grew up. My family is very small and really tight. Just being around the neighborhood, my brothers were always around. I didn't want to be in any trouble because I knew my mom or brothers would find out. I didn't want to hurt their feelings. I just tried to do everything right.

I was always a performer kid - like, annoyingly so. I would put on shows for my family and direct my friends in little plays, and my little sister, I'd make up dances with her. But when I was 12, that was when I started taking it seriously, and my mom for some reason believed in me and helped me find an agent in Cleveland, which did nothing for me.

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