I just want people to listen to the music and get something from it, whatever it may be. Whether it's a catchy lyric or a whole situation.
Two people who I think have the world's most perfect skin are Cate Blanchett and Kate Bosworth. Maybe there's something to being named Kate, I don't know, but those two just seem to be effortless, yet completely, ethereally gorgeous.
Why have a model on the front of your magazine when you can have Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett or Hilary Swank? Because those girls are intelligent and talented, people are interested.
My dream is to work with people like Meryl Streep, Michael Fassbender, Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett. To me, those are true storytellers - genuine people who have stories to tell and make incredible films.
People talk a lot about, 'You're a Disney princess! You're Cinderella!' and this and that. But for me, it's all about the fact that I worked with Cate Blanchett and was directed by Kenneth Branagh. That's the 'Cinderella' story for me.
At the end of their first years, there are few people who would have predicted that Truman would be elected in 1948 or that Reagan would get a second term. It's always premature to make some kind of categorical judgment after the first year in office.
People are born with the ability to make judgments. And they can't help but use the information they have to divine something about the world they're in. Making categorical judgments, in large, helps our society.
There's this notion out there - and it's a categorically false notion - that the only business model in the service industry is the minimum-wage business model. I say phooey to that. You go to a Costco store, and you see people there who've been working there for years and years. They're making $15, $20 an hour, plus health benefits.
I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don't think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything.
What's interesting about the 21st century is how people deal with cultural history. We don't necessarily feel like there are discrete categories. We consume it as a complete package, whether it's down the street or on the other side of the globe.
There are people who design buildings that are not technically and financially good, and there are those who do. Two categories - simple.
For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn't have to define you. It doesn't have to limit you.
I think we have to get beyond the idea that we have to categorize people.
I love finding - or inventing - ways to categorize people.
I'm not the only one that people try to put in a box. I think it's easier for people to understand things when they can categorize them.
It turns out that I'm far too schizophrenic musically for people to categorize me. I think people judge me a lot before they ever really know who I am.
My way of living and working is that I'll do my thing. I went from one thing to another. That annoyed people. They didn't know how to categorize me.
The way popular music is categorized and formatted cuts down on everyone's options. And although people don't talk about it, there are a lot of issues of race determining musical categories of what's rock, R&B, or even folk. It ends up restricting creativity.
The fact is that viewers are fickle and it's rare that such a large group of people can be categorized in any type of way. There's enough content to go around, and if we stop focusing on numbers and start focusing on the quality of the project, then I think everybody - viewers and artists alike - is going to be a lot happier.
A lot of people who have been perceiving my music have been trying to formulate a genre for it, and I think it's just a natural thing; it doesn't need to be categorized. It doesn't need to be sectioned, if you will.
