People are so passionate about their favourite artists making it to number 1, it almost reminds me of football fanaticism. Nowadays, it’s ‘One Direction’ vs ‘The Wanted.’ Back in my day, it was ‘Oasis’ vs ‘Blur’.
My favourite trainers are Converse.
One of my favourite Japanese cartoons is ‘Yasuragi no Yakata,’ written by the famous Fujiko Fujio.
There are maybe 100 actors I look up to, but my first two favourite actors were Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson.
In school, my favourite class was when we were given a subject for an essay on which we could freewheel. And poetry: I’ve always written it and loved the way words interact, in meaning and in sound.
My inbox and doormat are full with emails and letters from people who want me to endorse their Higgs board game or to inaugurate the walkway of their new office atrium. There’s even a microbrewery in Barcelona which wants to know what my favourite beer is so they can brew a similar one in my honour. It is quite mad.
Shevchenko was always the favourite player for me. He was my idol. When we met, we exchanged shirts and talked for a while. It was great.
Honestly, for a big city, London is by far my favourite city on earth, and I’m not just saying that!
My favourite performances are by actresses like Bette Davis in ‘All About Eve’ or Gena Rowlands in pretty much anything – performances that have nothing to do with age.
My favourite restaurant of all time is Mildreds on London’s Lexington Street. It’s a little vegetarian restaurant and is really fun and healthy, too. It was the first place I went to in London and really liked. That was 20 years ago, and it is still my favourite.
My favourite thing to do as an artist is record. It’s a super therapeutic thing for me. Not to sound corny, but it literally is a stress relief for me.
To play someone I loved in my favourite fairytale as a kid is a total honour.
I don’t think I have one particular favourite writer. I have many whose works I will always buy or reread – Muriel Spark, Anthony Powell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ruth Rendell, James Ellroy, William McIlvanney, Kate Atkinson, John Burnside, Louise Welsh, Iain Banks.
I am for fetishisation! All of us have our favourite things, and they speak to us.
Amitabh Bachchan is my favourite actor.
