“It is actually important to do songs they’re familiar with. Also, I love those songs. In a way, I think I’ve changed people’s perceptions of what a cabaret show like this could be.”

You can feel it coming and you can see where it is going to take you but you are powerless, utterly powerless to stop it. I know now.

I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.

Actors aren’t stupid, mostly, and if there’s a sensibility and an aesthetic that a director’s going for, if you’re aware of that too, you can do things to help that.

If the president of the country is not actually saying something, allowing equality to happen, how could you expect to counsel kids not to bully other kids?

You should *have* an experience; it shouldn’t just *be* an experience.

Most people will never know anything beyond what they see with their own two eyes.

You could then, when you lay that as the groundwork, say, “Here I am. This is what I think. I come in peace.” Then you’re able to push out, to be able to talk about more things. And that’s been a really heartening thing about my life, actually.

In terms of the sort of class, and the sort of snobby, slightly on the back-foot thing Britain has. But it’s much more prevalent in America.

It’s about how you exist as a person in the world, and the idea that your work is more important than you as a person is a horrible, horrible message.

You’ll see Dame Judi Dench in a Bond film, in Shakespeare and then starring in her own sitcom. You never see that here with Meryl Streep.

Usually, there’s a story I’ve told that leads up to why I’m singing the song. The whole concept of the show was about being authentic and connecting with these songs. The best way to do that was in a room with an audience and for people to listen to that.

Nowadays people don’t know how to handle it if all the ends aren’t tied up and they’re not told what to think in films. And if they’re challenged, they think it’s something wrong with the film.

A sweaty Macbeth with blood on his arms coming in fresh from the battle doesn’t interest me.

My feeling about work is it’s much more about the experience of doing it than the end product. Sometimes things that are really great and make lots of money are miserable to make, and vice versa.

When there’s an adult person who’s scaring you, you grow up pretty quickly.

It is not hard to feel like an outsider. I think we have all felt like that at one time or another.

There are many, many books I’ve read and I think this is quite naïve actually because we all just try to uncover something.

Only when the pursuit ceases, is it possible to recognize what comprises you: pure being, pure consciousness. This is actually the very substance of your own self and being.

Awareness isn’t something we own; awareness isn’t something we possess. Awareness is actually what we are.

What gets taken away are all the exterior means we thought we wanted love to come to us. You have the choice to notice the perfect set up to see love is exactly what you are.

If you resist confusion,you are always confused. We think that we resist certain states because they are there, but actually they are there because we resist them.

When you get out of the driver’s seat, you find that life can drive itself, that actually life has always been driving itself. When you get out of the driver’s seat, it can drive itself so much easier-it can flow in ways you never imagined.

I love design and actually went to school for a bit for graphic design, so it isn’t so much ‘pressure’ for me; it’s a way to be creative, and I really enjoy it.

I was like: “I’m actually doing this.” And now I feel more confident going into something.