I have a cultural map in my head, where I find similarities between different cultures. For example, domestic Japanese pop music sounds like Arabic music to me - the vocal intonations and vibrato - and, in my mind, Bali is next to New York. Maybe everyone has these geographies in their head. This is the way I've been working.
I do hear about these actors who go on vacations to Bali for three months, and their agents are banging their heads against a wall trying to find their clients - but that's not me. I'm working hard every day. Enjoy your vacation.
I love bringing the colors and textures of other cultures. If I wear a dress that I bought from a street vendor in Bali on a red carpet, it's a way of bringing my travels with me.
If I wear a dress that I bought from a street vendor in Bali on a red carpet, it's a way of bringing my travels with me.
Me and my family, we sort of had this plan to... once we had kids, we had a plan that about every six years we'd move to a new country. So, when we had kids, we moved to Bali for six years, then we went to Australia for six years.
I can never tell ahead of time which book will give me trouble - some balk every step of the way, others seem to write themselves - but certainly the mechanics of writing, finding the time and the psychic space, are easier now that my children are grown.
Give me 10 high school pitchers, let me spend a week with them, and I'll show you 10 pitchers who won't balk. It's not that difficult, and they better learn it.
'Hedwig' was the first audition my agent ever sent me on. I still have the slip of paper where I wrote down the appointment. I wrote down, 'Headwitch and the Angry Itch. Yitzhak. Croatian ex-drag queen billed as the last Jewess of the Balkans Krystal Nacht.'
My father, a Russian translator, wanted to distinguish me by calling me Misha, the Russian diminutive of his name, Michael. My name and work as a writer specialising in the Balkans has created a myth that I have Slavic connections, but actually I am British.
Money is not a motivating factor. Money doesn't thrill me or make me play better because there are benefits to being wealthy. I'm just happy with a ball at my feet. My motivation comes from playing the game I love. If I wasn't paid to be a professional footballer I would willingly play for nothing.
Emoting songs onscreen comes naturally to me since we do emote in the studio behind the mike as well. But acting in a full-length Bollywood film is a completely different ball game.
If the president of the college had asked me what I thought about Dewey McLean, I'd say he's a weak sister. I thought he'd been knocked out of the ball game and had just disappeared, because nobody invites him to conferences anymore.
I gotta be me. I'm going to go to ball games, because that's what I do. I'm going to go to live music shows, because I love live music.
If I would be happy, I would be a very bad ball player. With me, when I get mad, it puts energy in my body.
I was a good baseball player. I still play a couple of times a week as part of my daily workout. Just throwing the ball, running around, fielding ground balls, you know. It's better to me than being on a treadmill or some sort of Zumba class.
I started playing ball when I was a kid. My dad was a pro ball player and he passed on his knowledge to me.
I'm going to be a Niner, you know, I've been there - that's who drafted me, gave me the opportunity to come into this league, to be a professional ball player, and I was there 10 years, man.
During the 'ballad' years for me, the politics was latent; I was just falling in love with the ballads and my boyfriend. And there was the beauty of the songs.
I can write a love song or a ballad, or when I read something and it pisses me off, I know how to go in.
Like, it's fun for me to sing 'I Think We're Alone Now.' But when 'Could've Been' comes out as a single, that's a ballad and really shows my voice; then people will say, 'Hey, this girl really can sing.'
