You want to do things that you watched when you grew up. I grew up on The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and Singin' in the Rain. I watched those, over and over again, so of course, I want to do musicals.
We grew up listening to a variety of music, such as Gospel/Christian, R&B old/new school, jazz, blues, Mozart, Mary Poppins, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, just to name a few. I love opera, too - went to state in high school as a soloist.
When I was three years old, a nanny took me shopping and I saw large cut-outs of Mary Poppins in the store and yelled, 'That's mummy!' These women walked by and said, 'Oh how cute. That little girl thinks that Mary Poppins is her mum.'
I was 3 years old and Mary Poppins [1964] made an impression on me that was seismic, apparently. I fell into some kind of total creative, imaginative rapture over that movie that propelled this industry of Mary Poppins drawings, plays, performances - just an obsessive, creative reaction to it.
I'm thinking of Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music... there are too many to name really. And all the old classic ones like Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs and Bambi. That's brutal!
I grew up with the classics. My mom and I would sit and watch 'Singin' in the Rain' and 'White Christmas' - those kind of movies.
I never wanted Mary Poppins to be my nanny. I wanted to be her when I grew up.
I was lucky enough to be the lady that was asked to be Maria in the Sound Of Music, and that film was fortunate enough to be huge hit. The same with Mary Poppins. I got terribly lucky in that respect.
We grew up listening to music like that: we grew up on the snap music, grew up off the trap music, grew up on all the South sound.
You're worried about the quality of John Legend and Chrissy Teigen's child care? It's not like they're getting their nanny off Craigslist. They're rich celebrities. They could get Mary Poppins to watch their baby, as in literally call Julie Andrews, get her to come out of retirement to babysit in character as Mary Poppins.
I grew up in a home filled with music and had an early appreciation of jazz since my dad was a jazz musician. Beginning at around age three I started singing with his band and jazz music has continued to be one of my three passions along with acting and writing. I like to say jazz music is my musical equivalent of comfort food. It's always where I go back to when I want to feel grounded.
Julie Andrews is so iconic, and I grew up watching 'The Sound of Music' - it's every girl's dream to play Maria, in a way, I think. That music!
I'm not a jazz artist. Don't get me wrong now, it's all music to me. I just played music and if it's likeable, someone liked the sound, then fine, but I'm not interested in being a jazz musician. I don't consider myself a jazz musician. I don't have anything to do with that word.
I grew up watching American films, listening to American music, and it's a big contribution to the rest of the world. I mean, American jazz, for me, is the best thing culturally that America has produced.
[David] Bowie went on to make best-selling music - funk, dance music, electronic music, while also being influenced by cabaret and jazz.
When I did 'The Sound of Music' and 'Mary Poppins' and 'The Americanization of Emily,' all three were in the can and had not yet been released. So I was driving around having a fine time learning about how to make movies and enjoying myself enormously, and then they were released, and it was quite an assault, in a way.