You have to keep the recording process open. If you make too many decisions before you go in, you can lose out on those serendipitous moments that can really make a record, that I think are always required in the making of a really good record.
When I record an album I'm trying to get as close as possible to that perfect moment.
Every time I look through the lens with Denzel, I'm like a 12-year-old kid. It's hard for me to look at the monitor because the fun is in watching him.
When I record, it's this very precious and insular thing.
There's a kind of power thing about the camera. I mean everyone knows you've got some edge. You're carrying some magic which does something to them. It fixes them in a way.
I certainly don't feel like I am desperate to run away from a film set. I love the hustle and bustle. Everything is sort of mad right before a take, and then it just settles, and you've got these two minutes of a bit of magic. I just love that in film.
Being in the studio is a really romantic time.
When you first start singing something after you've written it, it has this sort of sparkle to it. And if you capture that, that's luck.
You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble.
A lot of making TV is lightening in a bottle.
One of the things about dealing with an artist is that their art is essentially - if they're successful, it's kind of lightning in a bottle. There is no formula for it.
We all want to experience that in our lives - a moment when we're two feet off the ground - and making movies gives you that opportunity. It comes and it goes so fast that it's unreal, but it does happen.
My favorite parts of work as an actor and a director are those unplanned mistakes that do happen, because it's like catching lightning in a bottle. It's the best part of what we do.
Usually, in the studio, on this sort of thing... you just go out and have a play over it, and see what comes, and it's usually - mostly - the first take that's the best one, and you find yourself repeating yourself thereafter.
We didn't rehearse or play the songs to death before we recorded them, and that let us catch a freshness and energy level we've never really felt while making records.
