"Like Mulatu Astake, this is just music that's in its own universe. I don't really know how to play the piano - I never took lessons or anything - so it's all just based on music that I like, but a few songs on Oh My God are definitely influenced by her way of playing, this really quick hammering on the keys, that's kind of unconventional. “I was on tour and we went to visit our friend Heidi in Amsterdam. She had a record on a small, little portable record player and it was playing Emahoy’s music. It was this beautiful piano music and I felt like I'd never heard anything like it. The scene was really nice: she was hanging clothes up in the backyard. it was a nice day out and it just hit me really hard. I asked her ' What is this?' and then I became obsessed with it."

"That is such a beautiful picture. I like the acting, I like the premise, I like the genuine honesty about the whole thing. It was one of those joyous things; even when [Roberto Benigni] was riding a bicycle, he was enjoying it, you know? ‘This is life, this is exceptional, this is something good!’ It’s just so beautiful. And it’s from the head and from the heart, and that’s what counts. And to me, Life is Beautiful is a beautiful film."

"That was the first of his records that I jumped in on. It's a good record to jump in. For starters, he's like a one-man orchestra and he plays three saxes at once, but that kind of overshadows him as a musician in some ways. It's the emotional punch in his playing that's the important thing here. His personality really comes across and he also sounds impish at times, just like a naughty boy. Or like a street fighter. He's got so many aspects to his personality that he really does wear them on his sleeves. He can take things like a Rogers and Hammerstein tune and he can turn it into something else. The thing with jazz is that people think you have to approach it thinking really deeply, but with Rahsaan Roland Kirk the music is so immediate. It should impact you immediately. He's got a pop sensibility but he gets into some really deep stuff as well."

"Micheal Mann’s The Insider was one of the most influential films on me. The way that he can build tension with a movie about a court deposition. Just incredible. To study it from a filmmaker’s standpoint, he does things in there, breaking rules, and usually if you’re going to employ a method of camera operation, you’re going to employ that throughout. But there’s one scene where he brings in a steady cam, and he does shots with that thing that are just incredible, and you don’t even recognize that’s what you’re watching, when it’s usually one of the most telling methods of operating a camera, and one I don’t personally like."

"I’m gonna have to say, because of my childhood, and it’s such a strong influence for me, Raiders of the Lost Ark. I would define my interest in acting as a long-standing compulsion, and I was interested in pursuing this career since I was five years old. But it was films like Star Wars, or, you know, films that really got me interested. Star Wars, Raiders, Jaws… Alien. Alien I have to put on the list… I feel like… Every time, if I name a film like Alien, I say, “Well, I should really say Blade Runner as well.” You can’t… I mean, the attention to detail, and the characters. I just can’t wait to see where [Ridley Scott] goes next. The fact that he’s doing prequels has just got me giddy."

"One of the best joke-for-joke movies ever put together, and many people haven’t seen it. That’s part of the reason why I’d like to [mention it]. I don’t want to create a list of movies that everyone has seen before; I want you guys to dig it out a little bit. A lot of physical humor, a lot of intellectual humor, just an insane movie for Woody Allen to make. Tons of jokes. People remember Sleeper and they remember Bananas, and Take the Money and Run and stuff like that. Love and Death gets lost a little in the Woody Allen shuffle. He has better films, like one I’ll name in a second, but he does not have a film with more jokes — just jokes — than Love and Death."

"Coming to America. It kind of gave me the same feeling of pride and just feeling good about myself that Black Panther did, seeing this sort of regal, black royalty, excellence. Now, they had to hide it and disguise that in comedy which is so often in our culture and in the movie business for a long time. But there were so many lines that you can just quote and appearances from actors you didn’t even realize that were in it, like Cuba Gooding, Jr. to Jake Steinfeld. “The Queen to Be,” you know, there are so many lines. And the characters that Eddie Murphy played… They were caricatures, I guess, but it seemed like the performances were layered, actually. It was very much a comedy, but it wasn’t over the top. If they ever remade it, I would be opposed to it. That’s one of those movies that you have to leave alone."

"I love this movie and a lot of people that I talk to haven’t seen it. I love this movie so much, and I always find out that nobody that I ask has seen it, so I’ve actually shown that movie to a lot of people. It’s kind of a fun one where it just keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time and questioning what’s gonna happen next. I love movies like that. [Kevin] Spacey‘s definitely one of my favorite actors, so I’m sold with that to begin with."