I can't read a note of music. I just do it all from ear.
— Jane Horrocks
I found that I could make people laugh doing people like Shirley Bassey. Fortunately it worked.
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.
My own singing voice is not very good and I don't think that anybody really sings in their own voice.
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.
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.
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 find singing as somebody else very liberating, it just frees me up.
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.
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.
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.
