I've personally never wanted to be 'the babe', and refuse to let vanity get in the way of my acting because I don't see my job as being a beautiful person.

I love telling stories. I think of myself as a storyteller, and I don't feel bound by being just a singer or an actress. First, I'm a storyteller, and history is stories - the most compelling stories. There is a lot you can find out about yourself through knowing about history. I have always been attracted to things that are old. I have just always found such things interesting and compelling.

I'm not really that interested in pandering to an audience of people that are going to judge me before they hear me. If they hear it and don't like it, that's totally fine.

And you go into a supermarket and every tabloid is like, 'Pregnant and Alone!' Stuck in the 1950s ideal of how a woman should live her life. This brings out the fiery feminist in me.

Girls get competitive, as though there's only one spot in the world for everything _ but that's not true. We need to stick together and see there's more to life than pleasing men. It's important not to cut yourself off from female friendships. I think sometimes girls get scared of other girls, but you need each other.

Most of my music theory knowledge is based on piano. But I write on guitar a lot, too. I'm not a great guitar player by any means. I'm not a great instrumentalist. I play piano on stage. I don't play guitar on stage, but I use it to write quite a lot.

In making a movie, you're part of a big machine. Even in a small movie there are still so many people involved in the process, and it costs so much money to make.