“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.”

I like working on things that are very different and that involve different disguises.

If you are a cabaret artist and you are mostly singing other people’s songs, you’re asking them to rethink a song, listen to it in a different way. The most impact you can have while asking them to re-listen to a song is if it’s a song they know very well.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Life is so horrible that one can only bear it by avoiding it. And that can be done by living in the world of art.

I was very good at sitting. But I just read so much research about how horrible sitting is for you. It’s like, it’s really bad. It’s like Paula-Deen-glazed-bacon-doughnut bad. So I now move around as much as possible.

When I was 6 years old, I was in a rock band that was horrible called ‘Dead End.’ The name kind of described us. People liked us; we would go and perform at coffee houses and stuff.

My point is, I don’t see the need to eat animals. I love animals; besides the horrible stuff that’s put in meat, I actually love cuddling with animals and petting them and stuff.

There is so many things wrong horribly wrong in this world but I know with certainty that you are not one of them.

Theater is like boxing – having the audience ringside. It’s instant gratification. Or horrification.

I’m no good with chords. I’m horrible with chords.

The law is a horrible business.