"I've known Kloot for years, I've known them before they had a name, I did their original demos, and I've known who John [Bramwell, I Am Kloot singer and guitarist] was for many years, longer than we've been pals. He is one of our best songwriters, and Peter [Jobson] from the band is my best friend. Well this has all come to pass through me loving their music and making Sky At Night with them and Craig [Potter, Elbow bandmate] at Blueprint Studios in Manchester, which we don't own, we've been there a long time. We just rent space there and every album is a kick-start these days, every album is a reboot for a band, because of what the industry is. So if you don't go in with absolute enthusiasm and confidence, there is no point in going in. And for the band to be as long in the tooth as Elbow is – not quite as long in the tooth, actually – but to be around as long as we have, going with the level of enthusiasm you have to have, and knowing The Sky At Night is that [good] – that's all you need to know, it's one of the most beautiful, optimistic things. So I chose the album, not because I'm proudly associated with, although I am very, very proud of my string arrangements on that record. It's John's songwriting, and I want more people to hear it. It should have won the Mercury Prize. When they put the floor down in the studios, in the big room, I put a copy of every album that had been made there to date underneath the floorboards, knowing they won't come up for 100 years, with a note saying, ""All these records were made in this space"", for somebody to find one day."

"The story, the acting was sublime. [Director] Mike Nichols did an incredible job. He just did such an amazing job. The story of the old woman and the young student was so new — we had never seen that onscreen, a depiction of that. Once again, I thought this was just a brilliant character study of these people. The story was extraordinary. I loved the relationship with Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman. I just thought that was staggering. And Dustin Hoffman’s performance was so sweet, and he was so insecure and a mumbling fool in so many ways. And she was so seductive. You know, she was a counselor at my camp? She was a drama counselor. When I was nine, she was 17 or 18, and she came to the camp and I was the only one who really took to her of all my camp friends. She would have me lie on the ground and we’d be in this bunk — like in a rehearsal hall or something — she would have us lie on the floor and picture the sky and picture all the different things that could come from the sky [laughing]. She just inspired me. Then I watched her on The Goldbergs — not the new Goldbergs — but The Goldbergs with Molly Goldberg, the brilliant, brilliant television show in the 1950s. Then I saw her in The Graduate — I was a young woman — and I was just — oh my God, she was so beautiful. And I couldn’t believe I had known her. She inspired me to act, she really did. As did Francis Coppola. I went to college with him — Hofstra University. He was the person who wrote all the plays. He wrote the shows — all the original shows that I was the star of. I’d be hired to do all the shows that he had written and his uncle would write the music, so it was kind of great."