Early on, I was into David Bowie. Then someone in the band suggested I try a Bryan Ferry type of thing. That's when I started wearing three-piece suits. It wasn't unnatural for me.
My parents were proud of the fact that I was playing cricket, they used to ferry me around during the weekends to play the game.
My parents wanted to be actors. They tried for years but didn't get anywhere. Then Mum got pregnant with me and they decided to make actors out of their children. You need your parents' support if you're going to do it. Otherwise who's going to ferry you to castings?
And there were the health benefits of being slimmer. My size made me more likely to get type 2 diabetes and perhaps even cancer, and could have affected my fertility.
The idea of not being able to control my own fertility genuinely terrifies me. That one mistake might change your life. That everything I am, and do, could be ended by the repeal of laws our mothers fought so hard for, that women had waited for the entire span of humanity to come about.
In whatever I may be thought to have been unnatural, unwise and indelicate, it is now my most fervent desire it may have a suitable impression on you - and on me, a penitent for every wrong thought and step.
It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.
I began to pray those same fervent prayers, lying in bed at night, hoping to see a scroll unrolled from the ceiling with a message from God just for me.
You know, it is said that we Greeks are a fervent and warm blooded breed. Well, let me tell you something - it is true.
I'm always fascinated when people really fervently believe, because I have such a hard time believing anything. When people have real faith in something, it's fascinating to me. And the fact that so many people, in surveys, so many people say they do. It kind of blows my mind.
I had been fascinated with Islam since college - particularly how it could inspire such fervor in our modern age and move a significant number of its followers to horrific acts of violence. That invisible hand moved me to study more and more about Islam.
Uncle Fester always intrigued me. I certainly always enjoyed his kind of humor. He's just full of mischief in a kind of macabre way. I don't see anything twisted about it. It's sort of ridiculous and wacky. It's sort of fun.
My dad prepared me for the worst of times while also enabling me to succeed in the best. He taught me to confront the insidiousness of racism head on, no matter what the ramification, so it will not fester. Defeat it and get past it. That was The Talk. Nothing scared me after that.
There is nothing I can do about this stuff and I am pretty well ok with the fact that I think Sundance is not going to be stopped by it, because he Festival is itself now, and doesn't need me out there to talk about it like I did years ago.
I've been to two festivals in my life, and I've never been to Toronto. I haven't really been making festival movies. This is new territory for me.
I'm from a little island off of Massachusetts, Nantucket. It's hard getting into the music business from there, but my parents took me to songwriting festivals because I would write and produce my own music.
Obviously there is stuff that I wouldn't play in a club that I play at festivals, and vice-versa, but my sets are still dominated largely by my own music. I think that's what makes me stand out a bit. My music is also festival- and club-friendly, so it generally works out well.
I will not do festivals. The thought of an audience that big frightens the life out of me.
I personally adore the festival of Dussehra, as its a celebration of our culture and mythological legacy. I celebrate, almost, all my festivals with Life OK, be it Holi or Diwali or Dussehra. It's like a festive home for me.
What good to me is the festive garment of freedom when I am in a slave's smock at home?
