I swear to God, I don't remember anything Gwyneth Paltrow was in. Some people get hot by association. I heard more about her and Brad Pitt and I ever heard about her work.

I love a good lyricist - always have. The thing that inspired me most was the different performers, like Tina Turner, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Madonna, even Janet Jackson.

I feel like, when we're kids, you're sold into this fairy tale of what love is. That Prince Charming's gonna come along and save you and you're gonna live happily ever after. They're gonna rescue me from the Bronx, and we're gonna go off and live in a castle somewhere and it's gonna be awesome. He's gonna love me forever, and I'm gonna love him forever, and it's gonna be real easy. And it's so different than that.

I did ballet, jazz and flamenco from when I was five years old. And my professional career started with dancing in musicals.

But the idea of taking things and mixing them together is what I do in my music. I take hip-hop, R&B, pop, dance, funk and soul and mix it all together to get my own sound.

I love seeing the Oscar films and epic dramas. But I'd rather watch a romantic comedy than any other kind of movie. There's something about movies like these that make you feel so good and happy and that you want to live in that world -- to be that girl and be part of the fairy tale. I have always believed in fairy tales.

Love scenes are always weird, though. They're always uncomfortable. It's all the people around who make it uncomfortable. It's not usually the actor you're working with, because they usually feel just as weird as you do!