I've been singing properly every day since I was about fifteen or sixteen, and I have never had any problems with my voice, ever. I've had a sore throat here and there, had a cold and sung through it, but that day it just went while I was onstage in ...
These days, my main guitar amps have been Magnatone. They're beautiful. Magnatones have actual tremolo, which I recently learned about guitar amps. Often what guitar amps call vibrato is really just a volume Up and Down. But Magnatone has a true vibr...
In a way, I don't want to know what's being said in casting offices, because it can get pretty brutal, and I don't want to have to think about the reasons why I don't get one job or do get one job. I can say, 'Oh, my height,' and that'll make me feel...
I remember my first acting class: I was like, 'That's it.' If I know that I want to do something then I'm going to do it and there's no stopping me, whether it's if I want to take a movie part or don't, or eat sushi for lunch or don't. There's always...
Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement. ... The conventional big-bosomed blonde is not mysterious. And what could be more obvious than the old black velvet and pearls type? The perfect ‘woman of mystery�...
I don't know how much more what I've done is any more important than what Ella Fitzgerald did. Ella crossed those lines, as did George Benson before me. There've been lots of people who brought a pop audience to jazz because they were able to link th...
I think because I did become a well-known face in my thirties and not in my twenties, I was pretty settled in my boots and I knew who I was. And I think there's a sort of Scottish thing, too, where you don't take yourself too seriously, and you don't...
Anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur like someone else is actually looking in the wrong direction. You don't look out for inspiration, you look in. You have to ask yourself how can I be better today, at solving the problem I am trying to solve for ...
When I saw Adele, I thought: 'I'll give it an hour before people say I was her,' just because I was fat. When you watch 'X Factor,' you can bet your bottom dollar, every single fat singer sounds like me as far as the judges are concerned. Can you ima...
I do have a stunt double because there are certain things that they won't let me do. Like they won't set fire to me. They won't like let me jump off a 20 story building. There are certain big stunts that it's just impossible to get insurance to let m...
The idea is to keep reinventing yourself. Once you attain a certain status as an actor, your fans start expecting from you and you should be able to fulfill them. That's why I try to choose as many different kind of roles as I can so that my fans are...
I eat a lot of fruit after I run. I find that hydrates me better than just drinking water. I have fruit already cut up for after a run, so when I'm done I can chow on cantaloupe or watermelon. It's so satisfying, and that probably keeps me from being...
I never aspired to the local political fiefdom thing that a lot of people ascribed me to. I saw myself as a guy who learned from Jesse Jackson how to do national civil rights. I wasn't really interested in who was going to be the next district leader...
Maybe you could call me a little controlling or I like things to be my way, but since I was a little girl, I've known what I wanted. I'm very rootsy, but it really hadn't ever caused me too much strife. I really know when to say when. I'm not too out...
The individuals inside are frequently fighting that their individual voices be heard, while the walls of the place, which are the mask, and the perception, are reluctant to give over to the voices of the individuals. Those in the margins are always t...
A friend of mine told me a bunch of stuff on Buddhism and about Avicii being the lowest level of Buddhist hell, and it just sort of got stuck in my head. Later on when I went to setup a MySpace, I tried a bunch of names and they were all taken so I j...
Actually, because I'm so small, when I strike an open A chord I get physically thrown to the left, and when I play an open G chord I go right. That's how hard I play, and that's how a lot of my stage act has come about. I just go where the guitar tak...
I've been very lucky at what's happened in my career to date, but playing something as far from me as possible is an ambition of mine - anything from a mutated baddy in a comic book action thriller, to a detective. If anything, I'd like Gary Oldman's...
The first time we did cavalry charge I was so breathless with excitement I nearly fell off the horse. I actually saw stars in front of my eyes and thought I was going to faint. The second time I had a bit more control but was still giddy with excitem...
It's disingenuous to say that criticism doesn't get to you or you don't hear it or that you ignore it. When everybody says, 'That's crap. I hated that,' you hear it. But it's much, much worse when they're right: when you feel that it is an absolute p...
Music blows lyrics up very quickly, and suddenly they become more than art. They become pompous and they become self-conscious ... I firmly believe that lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Partic...