It just seems to me that it’s hypocritical for us as a culture to say, “Bullying is a terrible thing,” when really, they are just reflecting what the society is doing.
Often for me, if I hear a song I know, it clicks for me and I hear it in a different way and I think, “I could sing that song. I’ve got something to say about that song. Wanting to connect with an audience and wanting them to rethink songs.
You do get really exhausted doing films. You work such long hours, and after a while, things can get out of perspective, just like if anyone’s tired, things get on top of them.
I was horrified when Richard Chamberlain and Rupert Everett said gay actors should stay in the closet. They were saying to people that they should live a lie and not be liberated, to live in fear of being found out.
I always think about a little gay boy in Wisconsin or a little lesbian in Arkansas seeing someone like me, and if I cannot be open in my life, how on earth can they?
Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He’s hardcore to play because he’s displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens.
I actually find in America, there’s a slight snobbery about actors who go back and forth between big heavy dramas and popcorn fare. That always intrigues me, because that doesn’t exist in the same way in Britain. And I imagine it would be worse.
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.
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 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.
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.
