Also for me, I don't make endless movies back to back all the time, I really sort of come to understand and love the characters that I play. And with April and Hanna you sort of go through a weird period of feeling sad about letting them go. Sometimes that takes me a week and sometimes it takes me a couple of months, just so that I can feel I can realign my own thoughts again. I do feel really, really blessed that I've had these opportunities.
For me, it's different every year. Some years, it takes me a while to feel comfortable again, to feel like I'm ready to go. Other years, it clicks real fast. Sometimes, it just takes one game or one swing to feel like, 'OK, I'm back.'
Working out for me is something I do when I feel like it. But it's really about feeling good and taking care of my body rather than having to fit into any sort of model or anything like that. I try to eat well, and everything I do is really just to make me feel my best so that I can come to my job or my personal life and just feel really good.
I sort of watched everyone go through it on that show ["Grey's Anatomy" ] because I came on later in the first season, so I kind of watched everyone else go through it but really I am so grateful and blessed and feel I have had such a great career and I love that fans love the shows that I do, and so when I get approached I still, I go, "Oh, thank you. That makes me feel good."
I've been a freelancer my whole life. It's sort of been my ethos that wherever something takes me, it takes me, so, that was really the start of me trying my hand at whatever it was at the time. I've gone from doing sculpture to videos to being a set builder and working for a general contractor to jewelry maker to now, a rapper... I just love to create. I've had a stint doing pretty much everything! It sort of doesn't matter what it is, as long as I'm doing it. I love to see something from conception to final product. I love trying new things and seeing them through.
People sometimes come up to me, and it's like they just want to capture Passenger. I feel like Pikachu. Sometimes, in the more sort of depressing moments, it feels like it's not about the music, it's just about the photo, and that really worries me.
The act of surrendering sort of puts me in a different mindset that allows me to be more of a channel - because I'm not holding on so tightly to things, I'm letting go, and I find that in letting go I become more of a channel for life to really happen on life's terms. I mean, maybe that sounds sort of metaphysical, but that's honestly how I feel.
Mostly, isolation allows me to go through a period where I really concentrate and get in a flow. Sometimes the whole process can be daunting, and when you're away from it, thinking about going back to it is especially daunting. If I go away for a week, I can be working on 10 songs at once, just jumping around to each one. I can get a month's worth of work done.
I sort of have various sort of theories when people ask me about songwriting because it is a mystery. You don't really know. Sometimes you can do it and sometimes you can't. It's really peculiar.
A couple years ago I was going to back off and actually thought about retiring, but it keeps calling me back, and I'm going to keep going back as long as it calls me. I really think it has something to do with the good vibes that I feel I've spread through my performance and through the time that I've spent with fans.
I feel really good, then I start to practice, and then I think maybe in a couple of months I can come back and I really believe it. Then I do a bit too much and wake up one morning not feeling well again.
Just wearing the corset means that you can never really relax from the moment that you put it on. So, there's a constant sort of strain and you have to hold yourself in a certain way. It's very uncomfortable. But again you instantly understand the repression that women feel and how much they were captives. It's sort of sad really.
If I was an actor, it would be like a part that was me. It has to be real to me. I have to make it mine. I really enjoy taking a song I feel that way about, and sometimes it can take a long time to come up with just the right touch. I think that's really my greatest talent, interpreting.
I always go back to old vinyl albums I loved, and that's sort of the aim I had with 'Hero' - just to make it look classic and feel like me, but also timeless in a way.
I love life... Well yeah, and I'm sad, but at the same time I'm really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It's like, it makes me feel alive, you know? It makes me feel human. And the only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt somethin' really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good, so I guess what I'm feelin' is like a, beautiful sadness.
You know, I really feel a responsibility to the music, and I teach workshops in music sometimes. And folks do come to me and they go, 'How do I make this blues song my own? How do I feel like I'm not an impostor doing this?' And I'm like, 'That's an excellent question.' That's where you should start, where you go, 'How does this speak to me?'
I do that a lot of authors still do not do is allow people to write directly to me. I get about 50 fan letters a day, and I answer every single one of them myself. It takes a lot of time and sometimes it's a pain in the neck and I answer the same questions over and over. But the truth is these people come to my readings clutching these letters saying, "You wrote me back. I can't believe you wrote me back", and I think it really means a lot for them to know that the author values them just as much as they value the author.