It is possible to have a pretty good life and career being a leech and a parasite in the media world, gadding about from TV studio to TV studio, writing inconsequential pieces and having a good time.

After I found that I had become an actor, slightly to my surprise, I did have some insecurity, and I did take some rather strange acting classes at a place called The Actor's Studio in London. I don't think they did me any good at all.

The plan was criticized by some retired military officers embedded in TV studios. But with every advance by our coalition forces the wisdom of that plan becomes more apparent.

I thought I was attractive when I shot 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding.' Studio executives and movie reviewers let me know I had a confidence in my looks that was not shared by them.

I was in the studio so much it was about the search for air in a metaphoric sense and the breathing has more to do with travel for me about the search musically for open air.

I photographed rocks and trees and tide pools and nudes and all that stuff for years and years. Until 20 years ago when I found that I could do it in the studio and never have to travel.

Songs really are like a form of time travel because they really have moved forward in a bubble. Everyone who's connected with it the studio's gone the musicians are gone and the only thing that's left is this recording which was only about a three-minute period maybe 70 years ago.

Well especially now I come to realize - and then - I would do my schooling which was three hours with a tutor and right after that I would go to the recording studio and record and I'd record for hours and hours until it's time to go to sleep.

Well I actually first got into music as a small child and as I became a teen I sought out making money from music weather that was singing lounge gigs backup in studios or weddings.

The size of a studio film lets you see technology in a way that you wouldn't on an independent film like the gadgets and the angles and all that.

It's big production. It's huge. It's using studio technology to your benefit. You don't go in and play live and then just take the tapes and get them mastered. You have to create.

Technology has made it much easier to make and manipulate music. Studio-driven machine-driven music does not always transcend into being a good live act. Many current acts are great live but many cannot cut it live. The music is not organic.

You can alter movie singing so much because you go into the recording studio and just technology for recording has gotten so good you can hold out a note and they can combine a note from take 2 and a note from take 8.

The most I ever spent on technology is building a studio - I built one at home in Los Angeles. I can't tell you how much exactly but the whole process is very expensive.

I was very studious too much. I would never go out at weekends. I was very serious. You should have seen me in class - I was blushing and sweating every time the teacher asked me something.

I'm in the studio 24 hours a day. It's true that once you get a certain level of success you become a target. Talk magazine should be ashamed of themselves.

With 'Believe' bringing really big success for me outside of the U.K. for the first time it meant I have been touring around the world and that led to a gap from the studio. I really feel like the gap has done me the world of good. Throughout that time I was able to collect songs that I really loved.

The thing with me. I can't stick musicians. I've thought about this. I can't stand them and being stuck in a studio with them I think that's my strength I can hear what they can't.

Having soon discovered to be great I must appear so and therefore studiously avoided mixing in society and wrapped myself in mystery devoting my time to fasting and prayer.

You know they just don't make big movie stars the way they used to maybe because the system has changed the studio system but it's sad to see people like Jimmy Stewart go all the giants of the past.

I used to sit near Marilyn Monroe in the Actor's Studio. She'd get dressed up because that was her identity. Sad. Those cameras wouldn't leave her alone. She didn't know where to hide.

And I remember going to the record studio and there was a park across the street and I'd see all the children playing and I would cry because it would make me sad that I would have to work instead.

Being in the studio is a really romantic time.

I try to respect the rules of the silent movies and I tried to make signification to make sense and also the crew were very good and the fact that we shot in LA in the real Hollywood studios and houses. We shot in the bed of Mary Pickford and you cannot be any more accurate than that so that helped a lot.