"My father was a film buff. He instilled in me an appreciation of the art of movies. He felt that there was no cinema artist greater than Kurosawa. At a very young age he took me to see Throne of Blood and Seven Samurai. Since then I’ve seen Seven Samurai over fifty times, in theaters, on VHS, laserdisc, and DVD. The latest Criterion edition is my favorite version of my favorite action movie. I love all the extras, especially the history of the samurai, which really enhances the movie’s historical context. In the second season of Heroes, we did a story line set in seventeenth-century Japan. The Seven Samurai box set was an invaluable resource for the costume and art department. About half of our crew watched it and were really inspired by what they saw. It’s one of those movies that I can’t turn off. One minute of viewing and I’m hooked. I’ve heard many people say that about the first two Godfather films, but for me Seven Samurai is the one that lures me into watching multiple hours of a movie I know by heart."

"I think I must have heard it on tour in the late 90s. When you’re a kid you know Lust For Life or The Passenger and all about his work with Bowie. But when it came to less well-known stuff, it was different. It was before you could find things out so easily, you just had to know a bit about the artist and dig around a bit. When I heard this I thought, “What a great band, what a great time!”. It’s got that slightly postpunk feel, it’s so tight, the drums are really dry. And I love the backing vocals – when the rest of the band do them it’s like a gang but it isn’t laddy; it’s got a cool sophistication about it. I think that’s what Iggy brings to things: he’s raw, he’s kind of punk, but he always has a sense of style. Maybe that’s what Bowie and Iggy saw in each other, that common ground of not over-intellectualising things, of being throwaway but with care and thought. And I love his lyrics, they can be funny – especially with some of the ad-libs – but always cool."