If you take the '70s with Blaxploitation pictures, there was a proliferation of black-content films and motion pictures, television, stage plays and so forth at a time when Hollywood was in trouble financially, and it was cheaper to do black films to...
I just watched so many Westerns as a kid that you end up using archetypes and sort of tropes of that genre, because there's a language there and you can twist it and turn it on its head or play to it or go sideways at any time.
To play Hillary Clinton? I'm kind of winging it. No, are you kidding me? I prepared obsessively. I mean, as much as I could in the time that I was given. Of course, with someone like Hillary Clinton, obviously, anything you want is on YouTube and at ...
My father worked, and my mother played bridge. Every time I went out of the house, I was chauffeur-driven with my nanny next to me to stop me being kidnapped.
Having done film, TV and theatre, the nicest final bit of the jigsaw is to do live comedy, because you can talk to the audience. It feels really natural to be able to laugh with them, but at the same time still be within the framework of a play.
And as a character, what I found very inspiring about playing Dharma, especially at that time, is that the women on television were more neurotic than they were free. And I thought, this is a rare bird and this is unique on television and I think it'...
I still think there are some pitches in this pitching arm, so I will continue playing with USA Softball, but knowing that this could be the last time a softball player stands on the Olympic podium and has the opportunity of experiencing this - it was...
It's almost like, when someone plays poker for the first time, they might be a professional poker player out of ignorance, just accidentally winning. That was how it felt in my first stand-up appearance.
I've been on projects before where there's no rehearsal, and you walk in on set and that's literally the first time you've ever played the character, and then I've had times where there's been three weeks of rehearsal. I like both.
When I was playing I felt tired all the time. My recovery period was a lot longer than the other players. They'd be ok after an hour - I'd have to stay in bed till the next session.
There wasn't much work around at the time, I think I found a bit in Germany or something, but we played together and somehow the bassist Laurie Baker got involved as well - I can't remember exactly how.
But there is a process that happens when you're making something, be it a musical or a new play. That process takes time, and mistakes will be made along the way, and you will go down and hit dead ends. But it is so public now. Any yahoo with a compu...
I'm very happy to sing whatever I'm singing. I've always enjoyed any role I've been given at a certain time. They've all been favourites, they've all been wonderful pieces to play.
The support that we have from the network in terms of watching us at an unusual time in the year and playing our episodes three times in a given week until we built an audience... is exceptional.
After playing Saffy in 'Ab Fab', I needed to take time out from acting to see if I really wanted to do it. I had been doing it for a very long time and I was being sent the same sort of scripts again and again.
The concept of clearing one's mind before performing a task so that it is consumed by nothing but that task, yet is open at the same time to anything that might happen - that concept can be applied to playing guitar, and it's enormously helpful for i...
When you play the same character for a long time, you have a shorthand. You get onto the set, you put on your outfit and two-thirds of your work is done because you've built on that work for so many years.
From the time I could play the piano, I remember trying to write tunes. They were in my head, and I would just sit down and start noodling. Next thing I knew, I had written a melody.
So I am one of those bass players who can do something and musically, it was back then and now it is even more, if you noticed on the new album, I am not playing all the time anymore.
Saturday night is your big night. Everybody used to fry up fish and have one hell of a time. Find me playing till sunrise for 50 cents and a sandwich. And be glad of it. And they really liked the low-down blues.
I have friends come over and we read plays out loud and I make paintings and I just do things all the time just so I don't ever feel like I'm sitting around.
