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I'm always amazed by the people who work on stage who sing night after night, day after day, week in week out.

The very beautiful and very touching thing about opera singers is they are very willing to do whatever you want. Unlike actors, who constantly want to know why they're doing something, opera singers will sort of follow you into the fires of hell.

The fact is that the learning process goes on, and so long as the voices are not stilled and the singers go on singing some of it gets through.

Most of the people who act and sing do so for their own pleasure and that of their friends and family.

When you are up close to an opera singer, hearing this incredible volume of noise coming from a human being - it's beyond belief.

There's so many singers, you watch them and a lot of it is waving around. You don't get this feeling that they're really thinking about what they're saying.

There is a blueprint that young female singers seem to follow to make it, to make some noise when they first come out. And it's a hyper-sexualized persona. And the thing is that it works. And they do make noise. But the problem is if it's not authentic to you, then you're trapped in that persona. And you have to live that persona 24/7.

When I do the music, I make the musicians listen to what's happening in the film. That way they treat the dialogue as if it was a singer.

Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness. And they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy... or they become legend.

What you find with singers, no matter where they're from, if they have any kind of an accent, the accent tends to disappear when they sing.