Johnny Flynn

Westminster politics is very unattractive, and people are channelling political energy into more inward questioning - there are a lot of musicians whose songs are all about feeling, and it's almost like that's the only safe place to express yourself.

I'm married to the girl that I first went out with when I was 16. We were on and off for years; now we're married with a kid, so I don't have that many exes.

I'm not really interested in myself in my writing. I can't see myself in the songs, even though I know different parts of me are there.

It's great being an actor and being part of a play or a film where there's usually quite a big group of people who are collaborating, and your job is really to fit in and share that energy. With music, because I write the songs, it's a broader, more abstract process.

When I was young, I was being pushed, against my will, towards becoming a classical musician. I had music scholarships; I had to play the violin and do orchestra practice and that sort of stuff. That meant I didn't get to do any school plays. I desperately wanted to do that.

Folk music - and what people are now perceiving as being folk music - is music that's quite close to the ground. The songs sound quite old, even if they're new. They sound like they've been sung by different people for years.

My dad was an actor, and he made it all seem quite magical. It felt like a slightly subversive thing, telling stories, when all of my other friends' parents were builders or bank clerks. It's always seemed quite magical to me.

I take them both seriously - I don't particularly want to be an 'actor-musician.' I want to play the great challenging parts, to be right for the part, rather than just, 'Oh, he can play the fiddle.'

If you're in a garage band, it's about being better than the band in the next-door garage. But in the folk tradition, it's more a vibe of sharing.

I like the idea of letting the music do its own work and the stories being more expressionful - if that's a word - in people's imagination. I've just got a thing about people and songs telling you how you should feel.

When I first moved to London, there was talk of a folk revival, with annoying names like nu-folk that made me feel slightly ill.

I'm not that politically educated.