As a child I played cricket as a hobby. Once you started playing for your school, you became more ambitious. You reckoned you could play for the state. Then you started to think about the country. But it happened so quickly for me, I started playing for the school at 13, for Bombay at 17, and at 18 I was in the Indian side.
I bombed the LSAT and quickly discovered that law school wasn't for me.
People don't remember that during the Fifties and Sixties there was a Cold War, and kids were getting under their desks during school because they thought they were going to get bombed. So it wasn't really that ideal at all.
During dull moments at school, I admit, I not only drew soldiers shooting one another but also tanks, bombers, fighters, and even the occasional space ship with planet-destroying powers.
I tend to hang out with my friends in Los Angeles from high school. We know each other from back in the day. They still see me as just dumb Tyra. We have a strong bond.
I remember really bonding with the first generation kids, the Chinese Canadian kids, and in high school bonding with the Latin kids and the East Indian kids. It was very interesting because it made me open to lots of musical sounds.
I never had a ton of male friends and it's always been something that's really interesting to me, what brings guys together? The bonding. 'Old School' is a good example of that. And even 'Starsky' and even 'Road Trip.'
Going to high school in rural Florida, we always partied down in the woods. Somebody - one of the rednecks - would leave class and mow a path out to a field, and we'd drive out there. Dude, every party I went to was lit by a bonfire. Acoustic guitar.
My dad was the one who took me to concerts and introduced me to new artists. One time, he drove me from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., on a school night to see 'U2' - he was a pretty dedicated Bono fan.
When I was in law school, there was a used book store nearby. I picked up a Harlequin romance and read it. It was stress relieving.
After 'Big Daddy,' it was really slow. We weren't booking a lot, and we did a little bit here and there, but, you know, we basically went back to school, did what normal kids do.
I was a bit of a delinquent growing up, a very poor student - I nearly failed several grades before dropping out of high school and getting a G.E.D. But I still read a lot. Thrillers and war novels, mostly, along with the occasional literary novel from my parents' bookshelf.
My parents didn't know much science; in fact, they didn't know science at all. But they could recognize a science book when they saw it, and they spent a lot of time at bookstores, combing the remainder tables for science books to buy for me. I had one of the biggest libraries of any kid in school, built on books that cost 50 cents or a dollar.
I was allowed a freedom as a baby boomer to do whatever I wanted to do. My parents were able to give their permission because they just felt, 'Why not?' I joined my first band and dropped out of school.
The great thing about a sitcom is that you're in front of a live audience, so you really get in touch with what audience reaction is, but also there are lots of elements of film that you're dealing with, and there's kind of a great boot camp or graduate school mentality to it, because you're going to suck.
I've always loved working out. When I was little, my dad used to make me and my sister do 10 press-ups every day before we brushed our teeth in the morning. It was like a boot camp! Then I did a lot of athletics at school and was a dancer.
You know, I remember Career Day in high school. I remember plumbers and lawyers... I don't remember a booth where you could sign up to learn how to shoot chickens out of a cannon at the windshield of an airplane, 'cause there would have been a line at my school to do that!
It was all that stuff about taking your parents' car when you're 13, sneaking booze into rock shows and ditching school with your friends. I could relate to that as a former teenager, rather than as a present parent.
Until the end of elementary school, I lived in a suburban area, so the type of village I used to live in is borderline between village and the city, so I'm familiar with the rustic environment.
When I went to law school, which after all was back in the dark ages, we never looked beyond our borders for precedents. As a state court judge, it never would have occurred to me to do so, and when I got to the Supreme Court, it was very much the same. We just didn't do it.
