I think every writer's had the experience of having a really good idea, waiting to write it, and then once you write it, you're like, "Oh I kind of got past the sell by date on this." I'm not connected to the initial spark that was the idea. A lot of that's about staying open.

I got to fall in love. I got to win a war. I got to write words that inspired a nation.

I had the good fortune of being 9 years old when The Little Mermaid came out, that whole run of really beautiful Disney musicals, and so, the fact that I got to interview with Ron [Clements] and John [Musker], who directed The Little Mermaid, I was, like, I just walked in and said, "You're the reason I'm even here."

It's an enormous relief to go to work and be an actor and not be worried about writing.

I'm past patiently waitin,' I'm passionately smashin' every expectation, every action's an act of creation.

I was one of several songwriters I think interviewed [for Moana]. I'm a huge fan of Disney animated movies, and I've always wanted to write an animated score since I was a little kid.

Lamplighters are the guys who manually turned on all the street lamps in London and turned them off. That was the gig in the 1930s in London.