The whole 'American Idol' way of looking at things is the antithesis of what I grew up with. There are a whole lot of kids wanting to be famous now, whereas if I'd even mentioned that word to one of my teachers, I would have got into a whole load of trouble.

I'm sure that there are reasonable people that had some reasonable projections about the future of New Orleans, but none of those could include not trying to rebuild the city and make it better than it was before.

New Orleans is my essence, my soul, my muse, and I can only dream that one day she will recapture her glory. I will do everything within my power to make that happen and to help in any way I can to ease the suffering of my city, my people!

I love orchestrating music and conducting and being on Broadway.

There's an album by Antonio Carlos Jobim - the album with 'The Girl From Ipanema.' That's the most seductive music ever.

I’m really boring, man. Like, I’m really dull. And I think people may think that I have this glamorous, fun lifestyle, but it’s pretty dull. But that’s what I like.

You have to read scripts and audition and develop relationships. It takes a long time to develop a body of work but over the last 25 years I guess I've done that many movies. In hindsight it may seem effortless, but there's a lot of work that goes into it.