“Very apt for now, because I think it’s just come out on DVD. I’m scared of horror films, and hardly ever see them, but I was just so haunted by the scene at the end at the swimming pool, about which I will say no more because my brain is still trying to work out what happened there. It just shows how, if you’ve got a really low budget, and a really serious intent, you can make people feel uncomfortable. It’s a weird, spooky, melancholy Swedish love story about vampires, which is a big subject at the moment, but it’s hard to imagine a better vampire film. So that would be my number one choice — delightful, strange and disjointing. “That will be the only horror movie on any list of mine. The first time I saw The Exorcist, I had to sleep with the lights on for about four years, so horror is not for me.”

"I saw Apocalypse Now really with everybody else, so Marlon Brando was there, and my uncle was showing the movie, and Dennis Hopper was there and [Marc Marrie], and … I don’t think Marrie was there, but everybody … Let’s see. Larry was there. They were watching the movie for the first time, and I must’ve been about, gosh, what was I? 12, 13? I don’t know, but it really put a big effect in me, and I was blown away by the scope of the film. I don’t think there really was a movie like that before with the helicopter sequences, and with Brando’s performance with Dennis Hopper was… I mean, he was really going off the rails in that, and that had a big impact on me as well, in terms of my own later choices with film performance. I wanted to get a little more Dennis Hopper or less Dennis Hopper with some of the stuff that I was doing, so that had a big impact."

"Citizen Kane I saw when I was… My dad used to take me to the arthouse theaters, and I grew up on these movies. I was watching Citizen Kane when I was like eight years old, and I just watched it again. I watched it at night and I watched it the next day, and that is the best movie ever made. Nothing really ever comes close to it, and even now, the editing today doesn’t match. I don’t know if Welles did it, but I know he had total authority on the film, and then they took it away from him for The Magnificent Ambersons, and even now, in terms of performance, in terms of film editing, in terms of the cinematography, in terms of the music, all of it just came together perfectly, and it has never really been challenged in any way. I think it stays as fresh today as it ever was."

"Also, I would say probably Taxi Driver, just as a piece of acting and just fabulous scene-setting brilliance from Scorsese and characterization from De Niro. That’s one of those films I just watch in awe of all of it, because it’s just so uncompromising. I saw Avengers yesterday, and it was such a fun romp and really entertaining and decently done. That’s the kind of film adults watch today, when in the 1970s, when Taxi Driver came out, that was the kind of film that adults would watch. That and French Connection and Godfather and Bonnie and Clyde. Anything pre-Star Wars, really. The preserve of grown-up cinema in those days were genuinely grown-up movies, and that goes for everything I’m doing as well, from Star Trek to Ready Player One or even Mission: Impossible. They’re pure entertainment rather than think pieces, which is what film cinema used to be in the mainstream."

"I wish I could choose something cool and artsy. I’ll tell you what I saw, which I think kind of shot into my list, and I only watched it recently — I’m ashamed that I didn’t see it earlier — was The Squid and the Whale. It was absolutely fantastic. Again, I guess, similar in tone to the other films I’ve mentioned. A sort of, you know, domestic comedy-drama, but very, very truthful, and brilliant performances again. Is it Jesse Eisenberg who’s in that movie? Yeah, I just thought that was tremendous. Luckily, my parents never got divorced, I never went through that, but it really takes you into the experience of watching your parents split up. And I think cinema’s at its best when it makes you feel an experience that you’ve never had yourself, and sort of understand the emotions of it. I was really impressed by that movie. Just a great, kind of… shot through with this black spine of humor."

"Mulholland Dr. was probably the nerdiest experience I’ve had. Just watching the film and then thinking about it, listening to commentaries, then researching online what other connections I missed and seeing all these deeper themes and meanings, I realized that’s how you can make a film! This was the first Lynch film I ever saw. That Naomi Watts performance, and the performance within the performance, still haunts me. The movie felt like it was just kind of fucking with me, and I really enjoyed that. Being John Malkovich was another one of those formative films that expanded my horizons on what film can be, what it can comment on, how many layers you can attach, and how meta it can get. Mulholland Dr. and Being John Malkovich came out around the time when I had already cemented in my mind what a movie was. Then for all that to just blow up in my face was really awesome."

"Mulholland Dr. was probably the nerdiest experience I’ve had. Just watching the film and then thinking about it, listening to commentaries, then researching online what other connections I missed and seeing all these deeper themes and meanings, I realized that’s how you can make a film! This was the first Lynch film I ever saw. That Naomi Watts performance, and the performance within the performance, still haunts me. The movie felt like it was just kind of fucking with me, and I really enjoyed that. Being John Malkovich was another one of those formative films that expanded my horizons on what film can be, what it can comment on, how many layers you can attach, and how meta it can get. Mulholland Dr. and Being John Malkovich came out around the time when I had already cemented in my mind what a movie was. Then for all that to just blow up in my face was really awesome."

"As much as it seems like it's a go-to song if you're into someone and you want to show your affection, “Sign Your Name” is actually from my mum. She's a huge fan of Terence Trent D'Arby, to the point of sending him fan letters and stuff when he first started out. “I grew up listening to the first album, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby, and he was the first artist I saw play live, at the Guildhall in Southampton. I was at the front and I was like ‘Who is this guy? He's got this Marvin Gaye vibe, but there's Prince there, and Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder in the vocal.’ “This was his big hit. Lyrically it said so much, it was a very poetic and eloquent way of saying ‘Let's cherish this love I have for you.’ It was a really nice way of approaching it, and it was a good way to learn how to write my own songs."