“And you realise you’re doing a public service in making people happy – as a musician you can give people something a doctor, a lawyer, a politician cannot give them that. It’s not scientific.”

I found that if I sang a line using the consonants, vowels, shadings, and inflection we recognize as human language sounds, people responded as if I were talking to them.

You can try a new way of singing a song you’ve performed for years, a new way of showing your family your love for them, or a new recipe.

I want them to have this sense of real, real joy from the depths of their being. Because I think when you take them to that place, then you open up a place where grace can come in.

Improvisation is the courage to move from one note to the next.

It’s not that I don’t love the song. My songs are like my children: some you want around and some you want to send off to college as soon as possible.

Whenever I’m onstage, I try my best not to think that I’m performing. It’s simply another part of my day.

My father was a very disciplined singer who worked hard at his craft, and I was around that growing up.

When we listen to improvisational jazz, or solo classical violinists, the way they phrase and inflect melodies feels vocal, like they’re talking to us.

Each of us might give that phrase a different meaning. It’s open to interpretation, and one song becomes a thousand songs. I love that.

Remembering that life can be full of surprises is useful in any part of your life.

I actually fought the idea for a while because it seemed almost too radical, but it became obvious what I was supposed to be doing.

Here’s a little song I wrote. You might want to sing it note for note. Don’t worry, be happy.

The true musician is to bring light into people’s hearts.

The voice gets to the soul of a person more than any other instrument. Because it’s the voice. It sings talks, it cries, it laughs, it squeals, it barks, it shouts it whispers, There is no other instrument that can do that. We’re born with it.

Yes. I’m a doctor, an epidemiologist, and lots of my professional colleagues flip back and forth between industry and medical roles. I know them; they are not bad people. But it is possible for good people in bad systems to do things that inflict enormous harm.

I’ve never been front and centre as an iconic American character [like in Doctor Strange]. Day to day, you know you’re painting on a very big canvas.

The doctor that acts out of love doesn’t burn out. He or she may get tired physically, but not emotionally.

I’m a football coach. I’m not a doctor … They don’t call plays, I don’t do surgeries. We have a great deal here.

I know patients who bring a dozen roses to the doctor’s office. And, boy, the next visit, nobody forgets that. You come in and hey – ‘Here’s the lady who brought the roses’ vs. ‘Here’s the lung cancer.’

Even though Doctor Strange is an established character, when you’re doing an origin story there’s a lot of room for manoeuvre.

Doctors are busy playing God when so few of us have the qualifications. And besides, the job is taken.

It’s an interesting arc. You start with a character [Doctor Strange] who’s likeable and charming but very arrogant and distant. He’s funny but you can see there are massive holes in his life. It’s a very painful transition and all that he becomes is tested so quickly and violently.