I play golf, and I play chess, and sometimes I go to the gym. On the airplane or between acts when I do the performance, I play Candy Crush to forget what happens around me, just to be alone, not thinking... You need to clear your brain.

For the first time I go to La Scala, for each thing, for each rehearsal, my knees were shaking. But the audience was very fine with me.

Opera singers, we're not muscle men; you have to be careful about your work.

I actually was a good student, but I never applied myself 'cause I was always like, 'I don't love doing this.' I wasn't passionate about school. I always got a B just to pass. But what's crazy is I got a 29 on my ACT test without even studying. So I was always, like, just smart - but never really cared.

All I can really remember doing was listening to the radio and listening to records when I was at school. I wasn't very academic, and I certainly wasn't a very good student.

Our education system has succeeded so far in teaching generations to do different routine tasks. So when tractors displaced farming labor, we taught the next generation to work in factories. But what we've never really been good at is teaching a huge number of people to do non-routine creative work.

I think everything that you do, you're learning. I mean, every movie that you make is like a film school; that's one of the things that I enjoy about filmmaking.