"Mad World’ is a great song and it has some personal significance for me. When I was on American Idol - you know how when you're on these competition shows, and you have these moments? - it was like my big moment. It was the one that people talked about for a while. “I remember the first time I heard the version by Gary Jules, which is in Donnie Darko. That was the version where I was like 'What?' Both versions of ‘Mad World’ are so brilliant and I think the thing about the song itself that's so brilliant is that it's talking about being disillusioned or disenfranchised as a youth, and with society, feeling like an outsider, and feeling like your voice doesn't matter. I would guess that the song is about dark times. “I think that now we're in a time where things like suicide and bullying and identity politics are so in the forefront of the conversation, but I think that when this was written, angst was more of a sort of mysterious thing and I think that's the brilliance of this song. It's talking about something that not everybody talked about at that point."

"Fight Club came into my life when I was an angsty teenager who wanted to burn down the entire world, much like the movie, and I was just like, “Yeah, you f—ing get ’em.” It just so perfectly captured every bit of teenage or young adult angst that I felt. It also is so funny. Like, I watch that movie and I just howl with laughter, it’s just so sardonic and funny, and also weirdly romantic. It’s a wonderful love story, too. I mean, obviously it’s a love story between two very dysfunctional people, but who’s not dysfunctional in their own ways? I think the writing is brilliant, I think that the cinematography is incredible, I think that David Fincher absolutely knocked that one out of the park. It’s a movie that I can watch over and over, and every time I catch a new line, or I catch a new shot, and I’m like, “Oh, wow. I never noticed that’s how they did that before, and that’s such a brilliant way to do that.” Yeah, I just think that it perfectly captures every single feeling of frustration and rage that anyone might be feeling at any moment."