His [Frank Sinatra] voice defined not only a certain period of time, but America and what America meant to the world. Sinatra grew up, as my grandparents did, when being Italian was very, very prejudice against, but they didn't let it bring them down or use it as an excuse.

You have your children and it's hard to even hold it in - emotionally.

I had always been affected by films, as well, of course - and great films.

I sing My Way, I say this to the whole country, "Well, the President of Estonia sent me a message." He heard about it because of what's happening in Russia right now and the power grab that [Vladimir] Putin has.

I didn't want to become this stiffened - and that was just a personal choice, at that time. And, the idea was also to go to film first, get enough notoriety in film that I could interpret some of the opera stuff the way I would want to interpret it.

That's what [Frank] Sinatra did. He was the first artist to come out in a major way against anti-Semitism and racial bigotry. And those are huge things back in the 50s and 60s and 70s - and he was doing this in the 40s.

The [Frank] Sinatra interpretation of the music, as opposed to some other music that you were listening to - where you felt like they were singing at you - you felt Sinatra was singing to you. It's a very intimate art form, and that's what I responded to - the intimacy of his performance.