"I remember hearing a PJ Harvey song, it might have been ‘Down by The Water’, and thinking ‘this is wicked, I’m gonna buy some of her music!’ At that age I had pocket money, about five pounds, so I went to this music shop in Exeter, found the PJ Harvey section, and all they had was this cheap cassette of 4-Track Demos. I was learning the drums around that time, and listening to the drums in a way I’d never done before, getting obsessive about it. I bought this PJ Harvey record, I put it on and thought ‘OK, the drums are gonna come in soon!’, but of course they never come in, it’s all demos. It was insanely disappointing! But I’d payed the money for this record, so I listened to it, and it became this educational thing for me of understanding that this was part of writing a song. Comparing the demos to the finished tracks, it was an interesting thing to hear and I think the most important thing I’d take from it is investing in something that deprives you of the one thing you were really excited about. It’s a good lesson, but completely unplanned, an interesting exercise to realise that the thing I feel is the most important thing, is not."

"With my friend Morgan [Freeman]. It’s so funny, these movies, the ones that I’m pulling out, they all have the same element. They feel perfect. I can’t find a false note, I can’t find a scene or a moment that you could lose and the movie would still be as good. There’s not a wasted breath. I think that Unforgiven is some of Clint Eastwood’s best work. I love westerns — I grew up on them — watching them and playing them around the barn in Buffalo. This is a different western, again, this is a broken guy who’s hanging on by his fingernails. He’s been a dirt farmer, he’s lost his wife, this is his last shot. That’s funny, it’s a little like The Verdict in that respect. None of it is pretty. It’s not slick, it’s not the balletic gunfighting that you see in some movies. It’s ugly and awkward and it’s not easy to kill a man. That was one of the themes that just stuck out like a sore thumb. This is not an easy thing to do, kill a man. For all the glamour and all the romance of the old west and the gunfights and so on, this is awful work, guns. They brought that to life. Gene Hackman can do no wrong. He’s sort of an acting god."