I think if there's something one needs to change with oneself, it doesn't have to happen in the New Year. You can do that any time you please - not that it's not a good inspirational tactic for the people that it works for.
I'd do almost anything for love, within safe boundaries. I've flown to places to surprise people, even if it was just for a day. I think it's so important to keep the romance alive and make sure the fun and spontaneity are there.
I've always seen myself as one of those 'show people.' My earliest memories are wanting and needing to entertain people, like a gypsy traveler who goes from place to place, city to city, performing for audiences and reaching people.
I think they should take everyone who works for The National Enquirer and the Star, and everyone who works for Us Weekly, and put them all to work looking for terrorists. I think they would find the terrorists. All of them. It would be genius!
I love producing. My dream as a producer is to be able to build a company that can be a safe haven for artists, for directors and for writers and actors to do what they do best and let them have final edit. I'd like to build something to that effect.
After a breakup, it takes a couple weeks for the fog to settle, but it's always a period of self-priority and growth. Life presents you with so many decisions. A lot of times, they're right in front of your face and they're really difficult, but we must make them.
My favourite song is Someone To Love. That is more like me than the other stuff, as it was the only one I was actually able to create from the bottom up. I call it an homage, not a remake. It is an homage to Freddie Mercury, because I don't think people can really remake Freddie Mercury. That's why we did a gospel version.
It was really fun and intimate in a way. Working with George Miller is exquisite. Gloria is different from anything I've ever played before. The first time I saw the characters in the studio I remember thinking that Mumble looked just like Elijah, with such a cute and endearing face. I don't think Gloria looks that much like me.
I would hope with all my heart that people understand this and see it in the film. And there are also other messages in Happy Feet, like racial and environmental ones, but none of them are so overt. George has made a great story about penguins with a lot of humanity in it and audiences can follow a species we don't know that well.
Individuality is vitally important. When people start to lose their individuality is when I believe they start to lose themselves. I think children are born with this message, and it shouldn't be taken away from them. I hope they walk away with it after seeing the film, and adults too. And I notice it also with myself, because the older I get, the more I embrace my own idiosyncrasies.
I got a phone call from George Miller [the director] asking me to play this role. We sat down and he showed me on his computer a documentary-type montage sequence of real penguins swimming, in an Esther Williams synchronized sort of way, and doing things I have never seen them do. Then he explained his vision of the film, asked me to read the script and to voice the character. I was cast a little bit later, and he let me do the singing as well!
Over the past year I'vediscovered if you keep on giving and giving, you end up losing yourself. I think that learning to give and receive is the trick. Perfect happiness is also a feeling, and the most amazing thing is that we were all born with the gift to make it happen in a heartbeat. Putting on certainmusic, reading something can make us feel a certain way. I think the key to happiness is allowing ourselves to not feel bad or guilty for feeling it, and letting it be contagious. And to not be dependent on other people to create your own happiness.