I think that being raised the way I was, where everything was so uncompromising, where, you know, we're prepared to fight to the death for the soil that you believed belonged to you - that kind of extreme engagement is very difficult to flush out of your system - or your belief system, anyway.
'The Magic Flute,' I think, is fundamentally asking what is it to change people's consciousness.
I think a reason why actors get reputations for being crazy and neurotic is because your life task is constantly in flux.
When you get to your third millionth frequent flyer mile, I think something snaps in your brain.
I'm not a good flyer. Because I do it so much, I think the odds of something going wrong are not in my favour.
When I started acting I knew nothing. It was a momentous decision to pick up the flyer for the 'Trainspotting' audition. 'Destined' is a bit of a poncy word for it, but I do think I was headed in that direction.
In the old world, people used to have to go to focus groups and ask people what they thought. Now, people are writing all over the Web what they think about things.
One of the ways I think I gain fodder for characters is by watching people.
Why does everyone think the future is space helmets, silver foil, and talking like computers, like a bad episode of Star Trek?
I don't think I would have been able to stick with it and been proud of who I am and be feminine out on the court. I think I would have folded to the peer pressure if I didn't have my mom to encourage me to be me and be proud of how tall I am.
Folding in is better than folding out. Folding out is cool, and it looks potentially better⦠but I don't think that's the way to use a folding phone.
Well, I don't think it ever did, but in the early '60s I got interested in folk music.
Musicians are often asked to answer for an entire culture, or for an entire movement. It's a process of commodification. It becomes packaged and summarized in a word like 'emo' or 'grunge'... or 'folk music.' I think that's just language itself, trying to understand the mysteries of the world.
I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels.
I don't think of myself as a folk singer per se, but I really like blues and string-band music. When I started listening to records when I was a teenager, the folk boom was going on.
I don't really think of myself as a folk singer.
If someone asked what kind of music I play, I wouldn't say I'm a folk singer; however, if folk music means music for the people, and playing music to entertain them and share different messages, then sure, I'd like to think that I'm part folk singer.
I can go from doing an electronic track to hip-hop to even folk songs. I think people like that variety in me.
I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through - then follow through.
When you follow your heart, you're never supposed to do things because of what you think people might say. You do it for the opposite reasons.
