I just made the decision that I was going to try comedy, and if didn't work, then I knew it didn't work. Then I would go back and do whatever. But at least I wouldn't torture myself the rest of my life, wondering whatever would have happened.
'I Will Not Be Broken' has really become very healing for me. Any time you go through a cataclysmic event... it's going to inform the richness that you sing from... The experiences of life make all your emotions, I think, deeper.
Can life be defined? Well, how would you go about it? Well, of course, you'd go to Encyclopedia Britannica and open at L. No, of course you don't do that; you put it somewhere in Google. And then you might get something.
I wouldn't have been able to go to drama school when I was 19. I don't think I was even conscious of life... I was like a zombie. But when I finished uni' I just realised... just go and do it, stop being a knob.
Every day you wake up is an opportunity to go beyond, and that 's why I let my band go right now. For the first time in my life I'm just roaming around, vagabonding.
One of the important things about temptation is, if I'm going to deal with it I'm going to have to recognize, this is an area of weakness in my life. I have been tempted here before and before and before.
If you're going to have kids, there's only one way to go. They have to know they're the most important things in your life, and once you're doing that, there's no way that you could not learn from them, because they just give you stuff constantly.
So what I do, more than play any instrument - I mean, I love to play - but more than that, I write songs. Songs that are about living, about what it's like to be going through all the things that people go through in life.
I like being able to go to the supermarket and go on the Tube and have an ordinary domestic life. I'd hate to have to protect myself. I'm quite lucky that I can carry on without any intrusions. I don't get given a hard time by anyone.
When you're pregnant, you go out and buy every single book; you have this stack of books on your nightstand, but there was nothing that was preparing me for anything even remotely resembling what my life was going to look like.
I always step back and look at - you know, look at my background in playing team sports my whole life and taking that approach into Congress. It's not about me going, and you know, feeding my ego going to Congress.
You can be committed to somebody because of ego: 'I said I was going to be with this joker for the rest of my life, so I'm just going to do it.' Or you can be committed because you have a deeply rooted connection.
So all of these things are going on that make you wake up and realize you are a mortal person. You can choose to cruise through your life, but if you do, you're going to open your eyes at some point, and it's gone.
You know how if you're born in a certain situation you always expect your life to run on a steady trajectory? I've never really had a sense of that. I assume that life is going to go up and down.
Really, every woman is an example to me, because as women we go through so much pain. We have to live this perfect life when we are messed up inside. We all go through trials and tribulations.
You can't talk about life without talking about politics. You have to have both. If you're just a political person, you're going to burn out. If you, as an artist, are just focused inward, you're going to eventually be irrelevant.
I try to make as much time as I can for R5, because I love it so much. Ultimately, that's what's going to be around forever in my life. Because with 'Austin & Ally,' our season is going to end, and then that will be it. But R5 will always be there.
There's an excellent movie we have on TCM called 'It Happened on Fifth Avenue,' which was originally going to be directed by Frank Capra... but just before he was going to start working on it, he came across this story called 'The Greatest Gift.' And...
I didn't want to go down the route of spending a year of my life making a movie that would never be seen. I may as well go down a route making a film that a lot of people will see, which is the whole idea behind cinema.
When you grow up in life and you're poor, and because you're an athlete or you got rich overnight in music, unless you have access to financial advice or for the transition or matriculation of that process, then of course, you're going to go broke.
I'm not used to crying. It's a little difficult. All my life I've had to fight. It's just another fight I'm going to have to learn how to win, that's all. I'm just going to have to keep smiling.
