I had mentors, growing up in gay life - older gay men who told me about our history and the history of art and culture - but somehow, the younger generation missed out on that synergy.

I always did what I thought was interesting. I always just did what caught my fantasy. Looking like a woman, that was never the criteria for me. It was always to do drag. And drag is not gender-specific. Drag is just drag. It's exaggeration.

Hollywood is an idea. It's not a real place.

Usually, people who don't have a broad perspective see gay people as servants - as people who are there to make them look good.

I've always been fascinated by books. When I was young, my grandfather used to hand out a book - which would be anything from a biography to a classic - to me every week and ask me to write a piece on what I thought about it. On the other hand, my mother used to love reading thrillers and bestsellers.

What we get from building a space station, the economic return, the science return, is very, very important to our nation, to our economy.

I prioritise story over science, but not at the expense of being really stupid about it.

I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.