Unfortunately, I am very aware of editing and I look at the monitor too much. Sometimes the monitor can become your worst enemy because you can, consciously or unconsciously, start editing yourself.
I still see myself on TV and think, 'Oh my God, I'm on a television, and there are millions of people watching,' and I get really nervous and embarrassed and insecure.
Despite my career, so much of my life has been dictated by what I'm afraid of: fear that I am not talented. Fear that people will finally realize that I am a boring individual who doesn't have many ambitions beyond starting a family 'at a good time' in life.
I didn't handle success all that well.
One of the biggest obstacles I've overcome in my life was thinking I didn't deserve to be successful. Artistically I'm not as much of a heavyweight as someone like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell, because I'm not a creator of original music, and I worried about that for years.
I've got so many weaknesses.
I've learnt that you tend most to make a div of yourself when you're trying to cover up the fact that you don't know what you're doing. And that simply saying 'I don't know what I'm doing' is a massive relief.
I think I have let ego get in the way sometimes - the pendulum swung pretty strongly. I was maybe a little overconfident at one point in my time, and then I went way the other way and thought I wasn't capable of anything.
I've always operated with a great deal of self-doubt. Every time I start a new book it's like, well, this one will destroy the career and I have to overcome that feeling especially in the first hundred pages of the book.
I'm an extraordinarily anxious person. I'm a typical actor: narcissistic and paranoid and all them things.
Everybody has an inferiority complex when they step into a room. But then when you have children and you get older, it doesn't really matter. When I was young I had so many inferiority complexes. I had an inferiority complex because I didn't go to university. I had an inferiority complex because I didn't train.
Now, more than ever, I realize just how illusory my undeserved success has been. I still hold out some hope of doing better, but age and unhappiness have sapped my strength.
The biggest insecurity I had was my singing. Even though I had sold 70 million records, there was this feeling like, I'm not good at this.
When you first are in front of the camera as a young person, you'd be surprised at all the insecurities you can get.
But I'm guessing every actor is insecure.
We work in a business where you feel you always have to say yes because you never know when you will work again. But I found myself questioning that paranoia, which I'd grown up with ever since I started working in the theatre in my late teens.
Once I actually get in the studio and I start working, I'm fine, but it's just getting there and these hours of torment with myself and self doubt, thinking 'I'm useless' and 'Who am I, conning myself into thinking I can do it again.'
I hate receiving compliments; I hate being told I'm talented or people think I'm going to be a movie star. I always feel that it's forced and fake.
Everyone around me says, You're a genius! You're great! That's your voice! But I'm not sure if they're right.
Not having gone to drama school, I always feel like a bit of a fraud, but so far it looks as though I've not been found out.
When you're writing is when the "god should I just drop this" feeling can hit. When you're editing is when the "god this is awful and I've wasted everyone's time and money and will be revealed as a fraud" feeling can hit.
There's a difference between wanting to appear confident and actually feeling confident. I think there have been many times when I've overcompensated for how nervous or out of place I feel. I was like that at school.
There is pressure that comes with everything being a big deal. I remember thinking, 'I need to survive the Shins. I don't know what I'm going to do to make a living otherwise, but I really don't want to do the Shins right now.'
I always hope people will like me, and I'm always afraid they will think I'm a fraud. I try harder than perhaps I should to make people like me, then it backfires. They think I'm a buffoon.
Ninety percent of the time when I'm working, there's this very palpable sensation that I'm doing everything wrong and should just give up.
