Music Interviews
Ólafur Arnalds: “It’s not the end of the journey”
Nick Cave: “I don’t think that people want to be like me”
Bill Conti: “I’m writing it for emotional reaction”
Alexander Ebert: “I was constantly in trouble”
Nils Frahm: “Everything can be used for the music”
Ludwig Göransson: “I’m building a puzzle”
Hildur Guðnadóttir: “That’s when things come alive”
Jóhann Jóhannsson: “Does it speak simply and directly?”
Alan Menken: “Always be in love with the process”
Jeff Mills: “You’re only limited by your imagination”
Giorgio Moroder: “I was always interested in the hits”
David Newman: “You’re bonded to it”
Yann Tiersen: “Music is not language”
Hans Zimmer: “You are forever in that dream world”
Life
- “I act on intuition. I just let my intuition go in situations of fear. I live from my heart. I will continue doing things the way I have done them my whole life. And it gave me mostly a great time.”Antonio BanderasSpain, Actor
- “I’m doing things more personally than ever before because that’s what my project is based on, that’s who I am and I have never been this happy my whole life — but it was a long road to get here.”Umit BenanTurkey, Fashion Designer
- “The truth. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. And that’s it! May it be ugly, may it be beautiful, may it be perverse, may it be all of those things. That’s it, I can’t lie; it is what it is, unabashed, naked. I expect that of myself, that’s for sure.”Steve McQueenUK, Film Director
- “For me it’s a lot about physicality, about how I feel. When you have these hardships or when you see someone you love in pain or you struggle, all the petty shit goes away. You are like, “I can’t believe I was worried about this other thing,” when you see what really matters.”Amy SchumerUS, Comedian
- “If you are ambitious, you are running in a tunnel that never ends. You will always find something new to go after.”Curtis ‘50 Cent’ JacksonUS, Musician
- “I think it’s so good to try new things and open the window and let some fresh air in and try to eliminate any regrets.”Diane LaneUS, Actress
- “Follow the things you love! Follow the things that you are intensely passionate about. Follow the things that you like to do, which often to others might seem unimportant.”Daniel LibeskindPoland, Architect
- “I learned by doing. The rest is doing experiments and testing and not giving up. If something is not satisfying start again, turn everything upside down and find a new formula for printing. Everything is learning by doing.”Gerhard SteidlGermany, Publisher
- “I think the key to having a successful career is to find the thing you do well and do it again and again for the rest of your life. But I’m interested in expanding my language as an artist and as a composer. And I try to expand it with every project.”Jóhann JóhannssonIceland, Composer
- “I feel very lucky. There is luck behind me, there’s luck in front of me, there’s luck ahead of me. But that is a perspective that requires a lot of work. It doesn’t come naturally.”Jonathan Safran FoerUS, Author
- “Art is something about everyday life. Art is about finding creativity in the normal gutter next to you. To see the potential in something where there is no potential is often where art or creativity is a great tool. It’s about making the impossible possible.”Olafur EliassonDenmark, Artist
- “It's just so boring listening to false modesty. I've worked for many, many years so I'm really enjoying that my hard work has paid off… I think you should know your worth!”Denise GoughIreland, Actress
- “Everyone’s life comes to an end. We’re all going to come to the same fate. So you just keep going while you can, doing what you like.”Mick JaggerUK, Musician
- “I think as you are growing up, deciding what you want to do is really the process of elimination rather than gravitating towards something until you land on what really makes you happy.”Ian SchragerUS, Entrepreneur
- “Life is confounding and who knows what’s around the next corner. But in many ways uncertainty can be exhilarating—there’s a lot of freedom in it. It would be a shame to waste our snippet of time on this planet being afraid.”Deborah LandauUS, Poet
- “If you have to defend something that you like, it makes you to like it even more. My parents hated the comic strips, they hated rock ‘n’ roll, and when they found out what movies I was going to they also were against that. So everything I loved I had to defend.”Wim WendersGermany, Film Directorwim
- “Having come out as a gay man and the self-confidence that gives you is huge! It affects every aspect of your life, including my work. People like honesty. They respect honesty. And my film career took off once I came out.”Ian McKellenUK, Actor
- “I have an irrational fear of boredom. That’s why I now have this tattoo that says “Carpe Diem.” That’s what we should live by!”Judi DenchUK, Actress
- “When you are at a crossroads, mistakes can help you decide the right way forward, and I think I really grew when I understood that I need to accept my mistakes.”Ana RošSlovenia, Chef
- “I would say that a strong work ethic is a vital ingredient for success. That’s something I was born with, I’m convinced of it; it was nothing that I acquired. If you take on anything, you try to do it your best.”Clive DavisUS, Record Producer
- “Part of being a designer is to fail every day, to try things that don’t work out. In a way, every project fails every day until it succeeds! That’s what the iterative process of design is about. Timing in many ways is key.”Yves BéharSwitzerland, Industrial Designer
- “One day I realized that it didn’t matter whether people loved me or not. I was released of all that insecurity when I released myself from that fantasy and came to the conclusion that I could be happy making music regardless of whether I was successful or not.”Shirley MansonUK, Musician
- “You have to open yourself. Just as in life you have to be open to other people, to other perspectives — it’s the same thing when you write. That’s what religion’s about, that’s what literature’s about, it’s what life’s about: the stories that you build.”Yann MartelCanada, Author
- “I don’t want to be good. I want to be the best. Even in failing that, you’ll hit a higher mark than if you never tried.”GrimesCanada, Musician
- “I never thought of art as a career. I thought it was more like a monastic practice. It is something that you do – you can't not do it. If I made money doing it, I would do it; if I didn't make any money, I would do it. Obviously I’m not perfect but the thing I am best at is painting.”Julian SchnabelUS, Artist
- “My work and my life are the same thing to me. I don’t have a life on one side and work on the other side. My entire life has been my work. I don’t have a family, I am by myself, I have made very strict choices.”Brigitte LacombeFrance, Photographer
- “I never have been into trends. Not now or then! I was born like that, in fact, if I see too much of something, I change it. I like independence. I love the eccentrics. Find your style and stick to it.”Manolo BlahnikSpain, Shoe Designer
- “The journey of an artist is a journey of discovery and some engagement with the nature of material, with bodily things and all that has led me to this place. I’m really interested in that as a process because the process moves you in directions that you couldn’t rationally put there.”Anish KapoorUK, Artist
- “Writing itself should be so extreme, so wild, and so much fun that it doesn’t matter whether or not you ever sell the book.”Chuck PalahniukUS, Author
- “One of the reasons why I have this much success is because I’m hard on myself. Until now, I never really saw myself as a talented chef! I don’t take the easy way. I put in the time. From the age of 17 until 23, I didn’t take any vacations, I had almost no days off.”Tim RaueGermany, Chef
- “It’s hard to watch the misses, it’s hard to be criticized. But you’re always trying to hit it into the rafters, and damn the consequences if you don’t make it.”Chiwetel EjioforUK, Actor
- “The more experience you have, the more time you’ve spent on this earth, the more regrets you accumulate. It’s normal. You can’t do everything right, nobody’s perfect. But if you think too much about that, you’re not here. You have to make some efforts to stay open-minded.”Viggo MortensenUS, Actor
- “I always say ideas drive the boat. Ideas are a huge, huge blessing. That’s the thing you try to catch – an idea that you fall in love with. The whole thing doesn’t come at once, but fragments of things come and these fragments form themselves into a script. It’s a process.”David LynchUS, Film Director
- “You can look at these tough times as an opportunity to get closer and to learn from each other. I learned a lot from my wife. There are so many things that pop up. If you are paying attention, you can learn every second of the day. Life is my guru.”Jeff BridgesUS, Actor
- “I try not to look back. I’m looking forward. I’m worried more about what I’m going to do next week than I am what I did last week. There are too many things to do. Looking back is for everybody else.”Neil YoungCanada, Musician
- “I don’t want to only do what I know how to do. I want to be pushed somewhere else.”Catherine DeneuveFrance, Actress
- “Making something or creating something is about looking and exploring the potential, and I want to do that right up until the day of the performance. And then when we’re performing, I want to do it a bit more. There’s no reason we can’t.”Wayne McGregorUK, Choreographer
- “I wouldn’t ever compromise on the essential, on the essence of a project, the ideas or the themes.”Kazuo IshiguroUK, Author
- “It’s been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be to make the films I really dream of making. It’s heartbreaking when that happens, but it’s all okay. It requires patience.”Ethan HawkeUS, Actor
- “I can’t make people happy if I’m not happy myself. That applies to anyone who tries to achieve something in their life: if you’re not happy, you can’t transfer any happiness to anyone else.”Ferran AdriàSpain, Chef