I find singing as somebody else very liberating, it just frees me up.

I think that if you idealise someone for so long, they can only disappoint and I wouldn't want to be disappointed by those people.

I cant read a note of music. I just do it all from ear.

Usually, certainly British singers, adopt an American accent when they sing and I think that usually people are thinking of somebody else, but I just think of very specific people.

I found that I could make people laugh doing people like Shirley Bassey. Fortunately it worked.

Mike Leigh encourages you to choose a person that you know to base your character on. You write a whole list of people that you know and you go through that list in great depth with him. And then he chooses one of those people from your list.

My earliest acting memory is making up a play for my mom and dad called The Lonesome Baby. I have no idea what The Lonesome Baby was about. I just remember the title. But I'm sure it was an epic.