I come to Comic-Con in San Diego because this is where those fans are - those to whom I owe the longevity of my career.
I flew fighters for the Navy in San Diego for three years, went and did my post-graduate education, and then I was a test pilot in Patuxent River, Maryland, for a few years. I was back in the fleet in the Navy when I was selected to come back here to NASA to become an astronaut.
I decided to see how my voice sounds on different type of records. So I did Eminem and the Biggie, Florence and the Machine, and Muse covers. A couple of them just came from some jam sessions between me and my sister in her bedroom at my father's house in San Diego.
It was in San Diego and I was onstage and couldn't remember how to play the guitar properly. I was in terrible pain and my nervous system was just going wild, like somebody had just run a car over me.
The reason I'm in San Diego is not because I want distance from South Africa but because I want proximity to the people I love. But I don't envy growing up in America. As ugly as aspects of it were, my biggest blessing was to be born a South African.
My family came over from Spain about nine generations ago. I was born in San Diego, but by the time I was four days old, I was on a flight back to Spain because that's where my family was living at the time.
I had my heart set on becoming an English teacher, but stumbled into acting after meeting a theatrical agent in my dad's restaurant in San Diego.