"An African American filmmaker [Robert Townsend] and being Keenen’s little brother inspired me to want to do movies. It really told the whole truth about African-Americans in the struggle, in a funny way, without all of us banging on the door going, “Hey Hollywood, love us.” Through laughter, it erased color lines, and is one of my all time favorites. I love when you do a movie with people doing multiple characters. That’s something I do and love to do, and I find that it’s one of the hardest things to do and still be grounded as a regular person in a movie. I’m inspired to do movies like that in my next phase."

"“I fled through Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am and halfway through I was in tears and again a bit further on, more tears – as a father, as a son and as a husband. The last book that did this was Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and in some way this book is not dissimilar – there is a family in crisis and there is an apocalypse – but The Road is all darkness with brief spasms of light, and although Here I Am is also a deeply melancholy book about a doomed family, it is wickedly funny, so that you are laughing too, as it all goes to hell. A book with an enormous and furious heart. I loved it.” -NC"

"I love Blue Velvet. Put that in there. Alright, this’ll take forever if we talk about what I love about David Lynch. I love that guy. He’s one of the people out there that I just can’t get enough of. I just love everything. I love the way he does it. I love that at first you think it’s weird. [But] it’s actually not weird at all. It makes total f—g sense to me. And you know what I love about it? It seems like it should be pretentious, but there’s nothing pretentious about it. That story creeps you out, it’s fascinating, it’s funny. And [it’s got] dialogue like, “Heineken? F— that s—. Pabst Blue Ribbon!” That’s poetry."

"Man Bites Dog is a Belgian film in 1992. It’s about a film crew that starts following a serial killer around, and he’s charming and disarming and delightful, and he kills people with this film crew never interceding. The first time you see it, you’re like, “Wait a minute,” and you laugh a few times, and the second time, you laugh the whole time. It’s a bleak, dark comedy, but my god, it’s so funny. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was before the onslaught of reality television, but it makes a perfect comment on it now. It had subtitles and I still loved it. I laughed so hard."

"People give him all kinds of shit but they’re just jealous. I also listened to this song on repeat on tour this year—every time I got to wi-fi—and drove my bandmates crazy, who hate this shit. I love how minimal it is, and it’s the best intro ever and then when the beat drops it stays minimal and aggressive and reserved, so good. I’m kind of a YouTube fiend for everything that’s going on in this world, and it’s been funny to watch all the covers of this song kind of mocking him but also unavoidably kind of flattering him despite themselves. Song is pretty undeniable. Oh, and the video rules too."

"The only thing wrong about this movie is the terrible haircut Holly Hunter has at the end. Broadcast News is sharp and funny and endlessly quotable—and timelier than ever in this era of both so-called fake news and what feels like the re-emergence of world-changing journalism. I don’t know if I’ve ever related to a fictional character more than I do to Jane, Hunter’s smart, ambitious, flawed uber–Type A producer (who knows when to bust out a therapeutic cry). Add to that William Hurt at his most handsome, a complicated love triangle without a pat ending, the funniest theme-song sequence ever, and cinema’s most iconic polka-dot dress. It’s simply perfect."

"One of my favorite films is the movie Tootsie. I really love Tootsie. I just watched it when I was a kid and for some reason, I just, I’m obsessed with that movie. I think I’ve watched it 100 times. It’s just so funny and fun, and I love it. It’s cool. I like that it’s sort of about women, you know? It’s sort of about how he finds the woman inside himself, so there’s sort of like this feminine aspect to it, and I just love Dustin Hoffman. He’s amazing. I don’t know, I just love that movie. It’s emotionally totally satisfying to me, and it sort of makes me feel good while being interesting and smart."

"This is tough because they are a lot of guys in here, but you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to go with The Court Jester. I feel that it’s a perfect movie and contains some of the best sword fighting ever. I’m not always on the Danny Kaye boat, but this is the one where it threads the needle. He’s genius in this movie, and the plot is gorgeous, and everybody in it is funny. It’s so beautifully constructed, and they’re singing, and the world’s greatest sword fight between him and Basil Rathbone. It’s utterly committed to being as silly as it can be and it works like gangbusters."

"I'm especially partial to this one because it has the song 'First Born', which is actually not about me specifically, it's about all first-born sons. But nonetheless, I identify it as my kind of jewel to wear – I share that position with Jesus and Moses, there are a few of us. And it's funny: we did the Christmas shows recently in London and Sophie Ellis-Bextor sang that song, and as I was doing back-up, I was once again reminded of how lucky I was to receive such attention, care and unabashed love from my mother. Without that song, and that album, I don't think I'd be who I am today as an artist."