"Zappa divides opinion massively. Bottom line is, he's a dick. And you can't escape it. The years as they've gone on have been less kind to him. His later stuff is horrible – misogynistic, very jock-ish. He was famously anti-drugs, would fine band members if they used drugs. He was very showy too. I've got a bunch of his records and I never listen to them… apart from Hot Rats, which I just love. The cover is fantastic and deeply unsettling. The band playing it are insanely talented – Ian Underwood, Shuggie Otis… Beefheart. For me, the album is the first two tracks. 'Willie The Pimp' has one of my favourite guitar solos ever – it's completely mind-melting. Zappa had a really big following in Liverpool amongst casuals – I remember going up there in the '90s and seeing his name daubed on walls in emulsion. Considering how much he hated drugs, he really did seem to connect with stoners."

"I loved Primal Fear. It was my first introduction, I think, to Edward Norton. I don’t know what he was in prior to that. I love these complex storylines of scandals of the church and the greed of Richard Gere and then, of course, obviously that they fooled us for so long. I really fell down the rabbit hole and it turned on a dime and blew my mind. Frickin’ Edward Norton is such a genius. I hate to say this but I get jealous very easily [laughing]. If it’s a fantastic movie, or fantastic director or fantastic actor. Like, doing this play [Spring Awakening on Broadway] I remember [when seeing the original Los Angeles production] saying, “I’m jealous I’m not in it,” and that’s the biggest praise I can give. Honestly, I think Edward Norton is one of the best of our generation. I’d like to call myself in his generation."

"I’m an absolute lover of The Wizard of Oz. I adore that film from start to finish. It never gets old. I think it has a beautiful, tender tone of both real drama and huge comedy, and I adore it. I don’t remember the first time [I saw it]; it’s part of my brain. I mean, I saw that film along with The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins. I still watch it every couple of years, and it brings me great joy every single time. I love Bert Lahr [as the Cowardly Lion], and his performance really gets me where I live. When they go to meet the Wizard and he’s doing his big speech and he says, “I just want you guys to do one thing….” – I’m butchering this! – and he goes, “Talk me out of it,” because he didn’t want to go in… I adore that moment in the film, as well as countless others."

"The lack of interest in Fassbinder’s work depresses the hell out of me. For me, he is the birth of the new. His high-concept stories, told in bold dramatic strokes and with vibrant colors, teach us about everything from class and racial politics to family responsibility and true love. His theatricality comes out of the Brecht mold, but it is new, it is melodramatic and involving and funny, often bitter and ironic, always with good humor, but, for me anyway, never cynical. He wears his heart and soul on his sleeve. He traverses the taboo, attacks intolerance, and loves his characters so much, even if at first they appear totally unappealing. Fassbinder is an original, and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is one of his best films, made on the run like so many of his others. The world would be a better place if more people embraced movies like this one."

"I had to chop out Songs Of Love & Hate by Leonard Cohen, but I've got a later man-and-acoustic-guitar record that I think I like a little more. What I've got in now is October Language by Belong. The first Belong album is just synthesised guitar noise but incredibly serene and beautiful. It's a pretty unique record. The only record that I could compare it to through personal experience is Endless Summer by Fennesz, the so-distorted-that-it-starts-to-confuse-you guitar noise. It's just a wonderful record. It's a great record to listen to while travelling. I think that's the best circumstance to listen to music in. Where did I discover it? Probably record shopping. I'm really good friends with the guys who work in Monorail, and they have quite a good gist of what music I like, so there's a good chance I went in and they threw it at me and said 'this has got you written all over it'."

"Then the films that made me want to become an actor were films that were recommended by my father when I was 16, and I got my first VHS player, and they were very often these French films, Italian films in the ’60s and ’70s, and one of the films that impressed me the most was Rocco and His Brothers. Neo-realism — Rocco and His Brothers with Alain Delon, which is great because it’s told in different chapters. I think five chapters. Telling the story of each of these brothers, of this poor southern Italian family coming to Milan trying to begin a new life, and the authenticity of that neo-realistic Italian filmmaking, is very impressive. Also the drama, the way it is told, and big family issues of rivalry and jealousy and love and hatred are told in a magnificent and very moving way, and with a wonderful young Alain Delon playing Rocco."

"It seems to me that Sofia Coppola is incapable of producing an ugly frame; it’s just completely beautiful, from astonishing first shot to the final whisper. I think that Scarlett Johansson can be just fabulous, and in that she’s just fabulous, plainly beautiful all the way through. She was great in Match Point too, so very good. She gives that dreadful feeling of somebody that will weigh you down forever. And on top of that it’s a genuinely funny film, its got those fantastic bits, particularly the bit where [Bill Murray] is recording the ads, and it really is a comedy. And yet Bill Murray is so melancholy; so sad. After spending all my life in comedy, where you’re aware of all the grief and melancholy that accompanies being thought of as a charming and amusing person, I think it’s an almost perfect film, I think I’d put that in my top ten favourite films of all time. I love that film."

"Looking at my choices earlier, I was thinking, why haven't you got anything more recent, old man? I've really loved Little Simz' Grey Area recently, but I haven't lived with it quite long enough. This I have. 

Michael's a fantastic artist. I loved his last album, Love and Hate, but then this came along. It's absolute soul music, deep and powerful, one of those records that instantly gives you the strong feeling that it'll stay with you for the rest of your life. It's got such a great first track, 'You Ain't The Problem', but by the time you're at track 4, 'Piano Joint', you're just in another world. When I listen to a song, I want to be taken on a journey, and this takes you really deep. The whole thing. My only gripe's that I'd rather it on two sides of vinyl rather than four. Basically, I'm a lazy old man. But it's very minor, don't worry!
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