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There's so many parts of my life that I've struggled with - that so many millions of others struggled with - about being an outsider, about feeling ugly, about having to overcome looking different to other people.

I think I just really understand what it is to feel like you don't fit in, within your society, within your world, within your family, within whatever. I've always felt like an odd duck so I really understood that.

I do feel like I have always, in my life, been inclined to be on the outside, walk a different path or something. Because of that, and increasingly over the years, my sense of distance from mainstream society or from the way culture works, I have a different kind of perception of it.

I'm just interested in people on the edges. I feel an affinity for people who haven't had the best breaks in society. I'm always on their side. I find them more human, maybe. What I want to do more than anything is acknowledge their existence.

I can relate to having those people in your life that you feel are moving on to this great, big, normal life and you're like, 'What's wrong with me?'

When people are struggling, that's a painful place to be in, to not know who you are and where you belong and what you desire.

The only society I like is rough and tough, and the tougher the better. There's where you get down to bedrock and meet human people.

I do feel part of that generation of people who were rather idealistic in the '70s and became disillusioned in the '80s. Not just about social services issues, but the world.

I think it's my personality to overcome things, learn from them and become stronger, both personally and professionally. To be honest, I welcome those hardships.