When I was in high school in America, I didn't see anyone who looked like me - hardly ever. I just thought that was normal because you don't know any better. So I used to idolize so many other people, like Sarah Michelle Gellar on 'Buffy.'
For me, the labor movement and public education are linked as the essential building blocks to a strong middle class and a path to the American dream. It's why I went to Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations as an undergrad and then to law school.
Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb.
I attended sports school in Bulgaria just like my parents. I attended class twice a day and trained twice a day.
In high school, I had a couple girlfriends who had very extreme eating disorders. Anorexia and bulimia. And in college as well. It's just heartbreaking. As someone going through it, it's heartbreaking. And as a friend who's helping a friend going through it, it's heartbreaking. It's a real, real disease.
After every massacre in a school, Americans grasp at quick cures. 'Let's install metal detectors and give guns to teachers' Let's crack down on troublemakers, weeding out kids who fit the profile of a gunman. Let's buy bulletproof whiteboards for the students to scurry behind, or train kids to throw erasers or cans of soup at an attacker.'
I went to a mixed school and I can't remember being bullied at school, ever. I was quite large, in those days. Usually, if you're going to be a bully, you'll pick on someone who is small. I didn't bully anybody, and I don't remember being bullied.
I was tortured, and probably half of it was deserved, but I was bullied - so much so that there were days when I was like, 'I can't go to school today.' I was too scared.
I've been actually really very pleased to see how much awareness was raised around bullying, and how deeply it affects everyone. You know, you don't have to be the loser kid in high school to be bullied. Bullying and being picked on comes in so many different forms.
I wasn't bullied in high school, I was just ignored.
My parents got me in trouble when I was in school because someone was getting bullied, and I didn't do anything about it. I just watched it happen and then came to the school, and I got cussed out for not helping and not being a part of it.
I got bullied so much growing up for being a different color in a majority white school.
My nana was a detective; my nana was a great cop. You also have bad cops that were bullied in school or whatever and think that they have power, and that makes other cops look bad.
A lot of people say I inspire them or I've helped them - kids who have been bullied in school or parents coming up to me because their kids have been bullied or anything that they've went through. It really touches me.
My dad instilled in me a great sense of humor. I wasn't bullied at school because my outward attitude was confident, and that helps.
People tend to think that because I'm a performer and I don't go to a regular high school that I haven't personally been affected by bullies. But it's actually quite the contrary.
I don't know what Trump has to do to lose his supporters. It's like a religion. He's a school bully.
When I was growing up, my mother would always say, 'It will go on your permanent record.' There was no 'permanent record.' If there were a 'permanent record,' I'd never be able to be a lawyer. I was such a bum in elementary school and high school... There is a permanent record today, and it's called the Internet.
I guarantee that if you threw 100 people into a room, the first three questions they would ask each other are: 'Where did you grow up?,' 'Where did you go to school?' and 'What do you do for a living?' Most people on Bumble are looking for a life partner, and those things have a huge impact on compatibility.
One thing I don't do anymore is read or pay attention to the critical response, which is a bummer because when I started, and when I was in school, I loved to read old film criticism.
