Issue Date: May 8, 2005
Sibling revelry
Exclusively for USA WEEKEND Magazine, "Medium" star Patricia Arquette and her movie star brother David get together to talk about family.
By Nancy Mills
Patricia Arquette, 37, has never worked onscreen with younger brother David, 33. But she should. Their rapport is strong and immediate, as we discovered when we brought them together for an exclusive interview on the Manhattan Beach, Calif., set of Patricia's hot NBC series, "Medium" (Mondays, 10 p.m. ET). David, whose new family movie "The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl" in 3-D opens June 10, stopped by for our chat before heading to New York to film his own TV pilot, "Commuters," for CBS.
Until they moved to Hollywood in the mid-1970s, Patricia and David, along with siblings Rosanna, Richmond and Alexis, lived with their parents in a Virginia commune. All followed dad Lewis and grandfather Cliff (also known as Charley Weaver) into acting.
When they started having kids, they were young and weren't prepared to be parents. They learned a lot.
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These days, Patricia is engaged to actor Tom Jane, with whom she has a daughter, Harlow, 2. She's also mom to Enzo, 16, from a past relationship. David and wife Courteney Cox are parents to Coco, 11 months. The famous sibs chatted about parenting, sibling sensibilities and how their public images match their private personas.
Are you raising your children the way you were raised?
DAVID: I like boundaries. We didn't have many. I think structure is good for kids. I want to make sure Coco is very nerdy for a long time. I want her to get into building models and knitting -- all those things that can occupy her time so she's not out clubbing at 14.
PATRICIA: I'm not a great disciplinarian. But luckily Enzo didn't really need that. I just talked him through things. David helped me a lot with understanding him. I'm going to have to reconfigure my skills for my daughter, because she's already like, "No, Mama. No!"
DAVID: I learned from our parents' mistakes. Like putting my daughter on a sleep schedule. We never had that.
PATRICIA: We grew up with a lot of chaos. But they never pushed us like stage parents.
DAVID: They were really supportive artistically.
PATRICIA: There were dark things and things that they didn't deal with so well, but they really enjoyed their kids.
DAVID: When they started having kids, they were young and weren't prepared to be parents. They learned a lot.
PATRICIA: They started experimenting with Eastern philosophies, things that they weren't raised to do. For instance, Mom was Jewish; she married outside her religion. So they were great adventurers. I'm a minor explorer compared with them. They were like Christopher Columbus.
Is David really a wild man?
PATRICIA: People always want to paint you into a box. Even when you tell them the truth, they don't want to believe it. David does have an eccentric flair for fashion. Although, David, growing up with you, you were the most conservatively dressed one. But once you approached teenage life, you turned a corner. Why do you dress that way?
DAVID: It's just fun. I don't do it often, but once in a while I get a crazy urge.
Is Patricia really an earth mother?
DAVID: Patricia is all those good things people think about her and then some. She's caring. She'll throw a party for the kids and make it the greatest. She prepares things, like Halloween costumes; she's real crafty. She does a riddle hunt for Easter, something our mother used to do. You wake up on the morning of Easter, and there's a little card next to your bed that's a rhyming clue. You read the clue, and you go to the washing machine. You follow all these clues till you find your Easter basket.
PATRICIA: David's got his own crafty ways. He can smoke a turkey and make a mean barbecue sauce from scratch. However, I did teach him how to make hot wings.
DAVID: She also taught me how to treat women. That was big when I was growing up. I learned a lot from both my sisters about how to be a good man.
PATRICIA: Now that you're a dad, do you like making films for kids?
DAVID: I do. Kids are so cool when they like a movie you've done. "Shark Boy and Lava Girl" is about using imagination and having the right dreams.
PATRICIA: For 16 years I didn't make one movie that Enzo could see. Sorry, Enzo. Now he can see most of them.
Patricia plays a psychic on Medium. Do siblings have a special connection?
DAVID: There's a spiritual connection.
PATRICIA: I've never sensed something happening to a sibling. Our connection is more spiritual, like David was saying, but also on a human level, just enjoying each other. After our parents passed away, it brought me a lot of comfort when my daughter was born to know that their DNA was in her body. You have cellular memory of your family.
Best tip from your folks?
PATRICIA: Right after Mom died [in 1997], I had to go on "The Tonight Show." I was really sad; I didn't want to be in public. Finally, I heard Mom's voice say to me, "Just be yourself." So I wore an Easter Bunny costume. I wanted to be happy. Another thing from Mom was seeing her eyes tear up watching David do sports or Alexis draw. I learned "Try to see who your child is and love what their talents are." I also learned a lot of traditional values: no lying or cheating, and be grateful to God.
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