When I was growing up in the '80s and working in the theater, David Mamet exploded with a whole new reworking of what dialogue should sound like. It was punchy and raw and repetitive, bursting with dynamic. I remember that switching on a lot of lights for me.

One of the real ways out of conflict is humour. It builds bridges; it's a weapon against rigid ideology, narrow thinking, intolerance.

If you look at the copies of Churchill's speeches that have survived, they are heavily marked up. He was scrupulous about the impact of each word. He preferred short words and the repetition of short words. He knew everything about the techniques of rhetoric.

I am so superstitious that I think even discussing this subject is dangerous and will probably bring me terrible luck. Having been raised a Catholic, superstition becomes almost part of your DNA. The challenge is to slowly rid yourself of these little delusions.

In the '80s the band was 24/7. You were only as good as what you were producing at any given moment. Now my family is more important. I also think having the shock of your mum and dad dying humbles you slightly.

Most people, including many Jews, think of Yom Kippur as a 25-hour caffeine headache capped off by a lox-and-bagels binge. It's undeniably that. But it is also, at its deepest level, a dry run. It is the one day of the year when we Jews are asked to look our mortality in the face.

To awake from death is to die in peace.

I think you have to deal with grief in the sense that you have to recognize that you have it, and say that it's OK to have all the sadness.