"I’m a latecomer to Sharon Van Etten. I only heard this towards the end of last year and it melted me. It’s actually my girlfriend and I’s song. “The song is about Etten bidding farewell to New York, where she was living in her 20’s. When she was leaving the city, she wanted to write a song that was a farewell to the landscape of her 20’s, which became “Seventeen.” In the journey of writing the song she visited these places where she danced or met people and where she’d had these formative experiences of her young life. One of these places was a club that’s now an Italian restaurant. “It’s a song about gentrification, about how a city has different lives, and that feels so true to me and it really resonates. On my walk to the pool that I swim at in London, I walk past this derelict building which used to be a club I danced in when I was 17 and coming up to London. “Now it’s empty and filled with squatters and whenever I walk past it, I feel this pang of something that I can’t describe, but that “Seventeen” managed to encapsulate. That feeling is like, ‘All these memories took place in that building and only the people who were there can tell those stories. Anyone else who walks by just sees an empty building, or an Italian restaurant.’ “I think “Seventeen” is really about that. How street corners and physical spaces can have very powerful human memories and experiences hidden in the brick and mortar. So, for me it’s a song that encapsulates a feeling of loss - the loss of innocence perhaps."

"I’d like to pick Red Corner, because Bai Ling’s in it. [Laughs] Actually, I choose it because out of all the movies that have Asian leading characters, it’s the first to have the most feminine — the most brilliant, modern, intelligent, female character ever in a Hollywood film that portrayed Asian characters. In all other films, it’s a mystery, romance, or kung fu; but here, I played a lawyer, a contemporary woman. And she has a romance with this sex symbol — Richard Gere. That combination is really rare on the silver screen, in Hollywood. I play a lawyer and I fall in love; I’m under a Communist government and helping a foreign man. There’s also a lot of unspoken love underneath. I would sacrifice my life for him. She gives on many, many levels; she’s not only tough and sexy, but there’s intelligence behind it, and a total giving of unconditional love for this man for whom she would die and do anything for. There’s a beauty to her giving up everything for a man whom she’s helping while she’s under danger and pressure from the government — choosing between a country’s love, and being in danger of being destroyed and never seeing this lover that she would do anything for. It’s extremely beautiful and romantic to my heart and my soul, and I have a fantastic and beautiful relationship with my co-star, Richard Gere. So that’s one of my favorite movies forever, because I’m so close to it. These two [characters] are giving their lives to each other, and that love must remain hidden on the surface of the court system; the modern world is harsh. I like that under the harshness there’s a romance, and that romance is so free and so true."