I’ll be quite frank with you — I didn’t know about Hunger Games — so when I’m telling kids and they say, ‘Who are you playing?’ and I say Cinna, they go, ‘Oh you’re playing the gay guy.’ That was an actual answer. I’ve never brought that up yet. That’s how they perceived it. So I thought about it, and I read the book and I don’t see that he is or isn’t [gay]. He’s a designer, he’s a stylist, he has gold eyeliner—that doesn’t mean anything either way.

I've always been into films. I've been offered lots of films but they've always been these very stereotypical roles. They wanted me to play some gangster or street guy, or pimp, drug addict.

I'm very much about the environment, I'm very much about health, about being able to, at the very least, eat organic, whole foods that are healthy for us. And then, of course, everyone being able to eat and at least have a humane way to live. There's enough for everybody, but unfortunately, there's a lot of greed and a lot of ego.

If you listen to a lot of old funk records, the drums are really small. But you don't perceive it like that because the groove is so heavy.

I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head.

There's certain things in life that I love. One is architecture. And music, culture, food, people. New Orleans has all of that.

I never sit down to write or say, "Today, I have to record something." I wait to hear it and then I go for it.