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.

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.

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.

Having someone else to blame when there is a rude smell in the air.

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

My own singing voice is not very good and I don't think that anybody really sings in their own voice.

When I think of Marilyn Monroe, and achieving her sound, I think of having a rather large bust. I think of her physically and I am just able to create her sound, because her physicality was so much to do with her sound.