Mike Leigh encourages you to choose a person that you know to base your character on. You write a whole list of people that you know and you go through that list in great depth with him. And then he chooses one of those people from your list.

I can’t read a note of music. I just do it all from ear.

I just find it thrilling, especially when I totally lock in to the person that I am doing and I’m really flying… I suppose I am hiding myself when I sing as these other people.

I find singing as somebody else very liberating, it just frees me up.

My own singing voice is not very good and I don’t think that anybody really sings in their own voice.

Mike Leigh encourages you to choose a person that you know to base your character on. You write a whole list of people that you know and you go through that list in great depth with him. And then he chooses one of those people from your list.

I think that if you idealise someone for so long, they can only disappoint and I wouldn’t want to be disappointed by those people.

Mimicking people was something I did already.

Usually, certainly British singers, adopt an American accent when they sing and I think that usually people are thinking of somebody else, but I just think of very specific people.

I don’t think that I want to meet any of the icons. I don’t think that anybody can quite live up to your expectations.

When I think of Marilyn Monroe, and achieving her sound, I think of having a rather large bust. I think of her physically and I am just able to create her sound, because her physicality was so much to do with her sound.

I found that I could make people laugh doing people like Shirley Bassey. Fortunately it worked.

My earliest acting memory is making up a play for my mom and dad called The Lonesome Baby. I have no idea what The Lonesome Baby was about. I just remember the title. But I’m sure it was an epic.