"I love Alicia Keys - the voice, and the fact that she plays an instrument. The image of a woman being in control of her instrument - it's not often something we see in pop music. We need to play instruments. It's important for our daughters in the future. If you know how to compose, you're free. You can be more than just a singer. You can compose for movies, theatre. You've got more opportunities, more freedom. I do a lot of things as well as music. People call me for other things, different projects. You're part of things that men can do. Because most of the time, projects get given to whoever can play an instrument. People will call you if they like your work. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. The fact that you play an instrument gives you more credibility to work on other things."

"This is one of the most beautiful movies ever made. Even with the atrocities and torture, it has real texture and an aesthetic aspect to it. Even the shit looks special. Pasolini is a very dear person for me. You have people who are Christian filmmakers or left-wing filmmakers or liberal filmmakers, but then you have a person like him, just a gay leftist who made the best Bible movie ever. I think that says something about how he could catapult himself into these big political discussions in a way that not everyone can do. If Paul Greengrass made this movie, you would get something that would be interesting politically, but you wouldn’t get any kind of texture or beauty. So that’s what I really admire about Pasolini, that in the midst of all this torture and sadism the movie is still very beautiful and very unique."

"The movie that I always watch before doing just about any project — and certainly before doing this one — is called Nothing But A Man. It’s a classic film. Ivan Dixon played the lead character and it’s just about this black man trying to make his way through the world. But it’s a beautiful, beautiful film, and it breaks my heart every time I watch it. It’s just one of the most extraordinary movies I’ve ever seen. I was introduced to it by a friend of mine; I was doing a play — probably eight or nine years ago — and my friend, Aunjanue Ellis, who is an actress, put me on to it and I had not seen it before. Now I watch it all the time. It’s great – I think it was in the 1960s. Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln -– it just was super. An incredible film."

"I’m going Part Two only — I love Part One, but there’s something about the second film that takes the perfection of the first one and enriches it. Maybe it’s the novelistic detail, the flashback structure. I don’t know any other movie where the flashbacks are so long. I mean, the flashbacks aren’t just interspersed; they are entire long chapters of the movie. Somehow, with the contrast of the two stories unfolding — these two rich stories, the De Niro one and the Pacino one — all of the Shakespearean themes of the Godfather movies become so poignant. Also, it’s probably got the best cast of any American film, ever, down to every last character actor: Lee Strasberg is Hyman Roth; there’s this Fellini actor, Leopoldo Trieste — he’s in scenes with De Niro, and he was in Fellini’s first few films; and people like John Cazale, there’s no one better than him."

"Is it cheating? [Laughs] It’s hard to pick. I wouldn’t necessarily know which. I mean, I love the Goblet of Fire. I don’t know. Maybe the Goblet of Fire. I read those books so quickly when I was a kid, because that whole world was so, like… it took me out of my reality. And I just love magic and I loved that whole world, the creatures, and just how you felt so friendly with all the characters. The way they translated that into movies, I thought was genius. You know when they take a book, and they make it a movie, and you hope that it’s gonna be everything that you hope for and more? To me they just succeeded. I don’t know, I just love them so much. Every time I’m sick I’ll watch a marathon of them and I can repeat all the words."

"Now for a more contemporary movie. What a phenomenal third act. What a triumphant moment at the end. There’s so much build up — some movies just don’t pay off the way they should. The performances were beyond incredible, but to have that triumphant moment be as strong as it really was, you just don’t find it. And so simple too. The story didn’t have to be about explosions and car crashes to really hit as hard as it did. It didn’t need the Hollywood spin on it — not that that story could have ever been told with a Hollywood spin on it — but that this simple story about this relationship could have as big an impact as anything I’ve seen is incredible. JK Simmons is so good; he doesn’t have any tells, so you only get clues to where it’s going. But he’s so good at playing that asshole."

"I would say that one of the most profound memories was when my mother – who was film fanatic and loved thrillers – took me to see Rosemary’s Baby when I was nine years old. The film had a huge impact on me and, of course, scared the shit out me! I certainly wouldn’t take my 10-year-old to see Rosemary’s Baby. “It is a masterpiece in terms of the way it uses the language of movies and it directed me towards Hitchcock and that kind of visual storytelling, and thrillers in general – or maybe more psychological thrillers. So that was my first and most memorable movie. It was the psychological fear and oddness, the oddness of the characters; I remember I didn’t even understand it all when I first saw it. Visually there were so many things that I hadn’t seen before that have stayed with me."