"There’s not really a road map for becoming an artist other than the following: get up off your ass every day and make an effort; don’t be afraid to try and fail, and don’t wait for permission to get started; if you don’t have money, get creative with materials that you find or make; believe without a doubt that you were meant for something more, and that no one else can say something the way you can. If you’re fascinated (like I am) by the New York artist scene in the 60s and 70s, and how the AIDS epidemic in the 80s swept through and took its toll, “Just Kids” will blow your mind."

"Let’s start with Rudy. It’s a football film. It?s about a kid who wants to go to Notre Dame, and he overcomes all obstacles to make that happen. You know, he wants to go to Notre Dame, he wants to play on the Notre Dame football team, but he hasn’t got the beef. He overcomes all obstacles and endures, achieves his dream. It’s just really well crafted. I do like films that make you feel something for the characters, and that’s unquestionably one. Sean Astin does an amazing job playing Rudy, and there’s some other great actors in it, too. So I have appreciated that film and watched it on a number of occasions."

"The next one is The American President. I’ve been talking a lot about romantic comedies lately because of Sleeping with Other People, and you know, I’m listing all my favorite rom-coms, and you’re talking about When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and things like that, that could just as easily be on this list for me; I watch those movies all the time and love them. But I realized it took me a second to realize that The American President is a romantic comedy, because it has a political angle, and it’s got that [Aaron] Sorkin dialogue. But it’s directed by Rob Reiner, and ultimately it’s just a full-on love story between these two people that also has snappy banter and comedic scenes. I think Annette Bening gives one of the best comedic performances of her career; she’s so specific. There’s a scene where, it’s like before her first date with the president, played by Michael Douglas, and she’s sitting in the office and she’s tapping her pen on the desk. The guy says to her, “What’s up? You got a hot date tonight?” and then she does this move where she goes to put the pen in a jar, and the whole jar falls over. There was something so effortless and so specific about that to me; it’s a moment that jumps out at me, in terms of making the work you’re doing funny, but still feeling in the moment. I don’t know how many times she shot that scene, but it looks so natural. When I watch it, I find it hard to believe that it wasn’t really an accident that she knocked over that jar, and that’s incredible. I love that movie, and I love Annette Bening. And her hair. And her shoulders, her shoulder muscles when she’s dancing with the president in that blue dress. These are all things I aspire to."

"Just like we had a group of friends in Toulouse, we had a group of friends in Chicago, with everybody playing in each other's bands, and really we found a family there. Those were wonderful years, but since then a lot of people have moved to LA, or just moved out. Sam I believe still lives in Chicago. I don't know if he's still making music. I sure hope so. He moved away from this type of music to buying analogue electronic machines and playing around with those a lot and it was divine, but he'd moved away from the pop format the last time I heard him. But I do love Sam Prekop, and I probably have even more of a soft spot for his solo albums than for his work with The Sea And Cake, which I also find superb, but the solo stuff has always touched me more somehow. Maybe it's because there's less at stake. Maybe they're more free and therefore more direct. You don't have to show off your prowess so much, I don't know. But I do like the freedom of them. It's like laughter, the way it comes out. I really like that. I find that in beautiful, well-crafted songs we approach perfection. Not that we should seek perfection necessarily; we're perfect as we are. But for me, artistically and aesthetically, we're coming close to something quite perfect, and therefore it makes it into my list. The album feels so lightly or deeply attuned that you don't have to force it down. You don't force it, you just let it be and follow it. You let it guide you, and that's a big quality to Sam's writing. Sam could probably have been a much bigger star in terms of having more fans, but I think he's probably always protected himself from that, knowing very well it would probably destroy his muse. It's very difficult to not get crushed by too much popularity. You want to please people and meet their expectations, and expectations are just the worst thing. They're the worst poison. They should be absolutely prohibited and fought against, actively. I sense that also: that people when they meet me have expectations. They have a whole story in their mind and then when they meet me and I'm just me it's somehow ah, I'm not what you expected me to be. But that's a trap, the expectation, and I try to avoid it. I try to not have expectations, because most of the time you're going to be disappointed. So why live a life of disappointment, when you can live a life of joy?"

"Speaking of that, we must go to Blade Runner — true visual genius, and also in a class never matched. I saw it the first show, the first day, with a bunch of my friends. I can remember that because it was at the Cinerama dome in Hollywood, and it was on that huge screen with that incredible sound system. I still remember that great Vangelis music. But that opening — it’s embedded in my mind, that opening, with that scape of the city and its almost Mayan-like temple formation and those fires out of nowhere shooting up. Plus, Sean Young — that interview [with Harrison Ford’s Deckard] is unbelievable. I got a lovely letter from her last year. I worked with her on Cousins. Amazingly, amazingly beautiful. And of course it has the great Harrison Ford, and Edward James Olmos, and we could just go on and on with that movie. Daryl Hannah is great in it. And the doll guy, William Sanderson, who I got to work with on The Client — he played one of Tommy Lee Jones’ posse. One of the great things about my job is that I’ve been able to cast, sometimes, my favorite people."

"The irony about Berlin is that it was delivered as a concept album, but its component parts are from all over the place. The earliest songs off it are demos for the Velvet Underground. It's intriguing because 'Berlin' the song is from his first solo album, and then you've got 'Stephanie Says' [from VU] which has been changed to 'Caroline Says I'. He rejigged everything and came up with a concept album, but it's a hodge podge really. I interviewed him about Berlin and just about got away with it because I love the album. And I don't think it would have been as good if Bob Ezrin hadn't been producer. As much as David Bowie and Mick Ronson turned Transformer into the album it is, Bob Ezrin turned Berlin into the album that it is. The story goes that Bob Ezrin told his own kids that their mum had died just so he could record them crying for the album, and then when he had that on tape he told them, nah, she's alright really, I just made it up. That's what I heard anyway. You want to know why Lou Reed punched David Bowie that time? Well, I heard it was because Bowie offered to produce Berlin, but on the condition that Reed quit heroin. But Berlin is just an amazing album, especially coming straight off the back of Transformer, and you can tell that Lou Reed is not comfortable with being a pop star as presented by David Bowie. Somebody like Lou Reed [who] actually did reinvent the wheel – with some help from John Cale – with the Velvet Underground, and then one of his acolytes is seen to be helping him on his way. He was probably smarting a little bit from that. Really, Berlin shouldn't have worked, it was constructed from waifs and strays, but it has that great production with all the brass on it. 'Sad Song' is so beautiful. It's probably the most beautiful song you'll hear in your life."