I started singing for The Phantom in January, and we started filming in October and I sang all the way through to the next June. In fact, I was singing for about two months before I even knew I had the role.

My manager and my agents, they go over my contracts.

Choosing the right mask helps you... We went through many masks. It was very particular leather that as soon as you smudged it, you had to get a new one. We went through about 55 masks.

I had to get used to wearing a mask and wearing a prosthetic and performing with those things while singing and expressing myself through stylized movement, while keeping it as human as possible so the audience could be closer to the horror of the Phantom.

I was training to be a lawyer... I was president of the law society at Glasgow University, and my bass guitarist was my secretary of my law society; the lead guitarist and writer worked at the law firm that I worked.

I knew I'd just done one of the most amazing things that I will ever get a chance to do. Just to be part of a musical that's not your background and to pull it off and to think that we've done something that's really special.

I went from somebody who didn't sing to somebody who didn't speak.

As long as you do the best work that you can and not make it bland... because you're going down a lane that is trying to make everybody happy. You have to take an angle on these things.

By that point, I had started taking singing lessons. And after the first session, I mean, I was surprised that the windows didn't shatter. And after the third session, I really didn't know where this voice had come from.

I had to prove myself to a lot of different people.

Generally I don't like doing remakes, but I think that's more in the cynical world of Hollywood where normally remakes are purely for commercial reasons.

The chance to be both artistically appreciated and commercially appreciated... That's what you hope for.

I sang in a rock band when I was training as a lawyer. You know, not professional, we just did it for fun. We just did gigs all over Edinburgh and some in Glasgow and some at festivals.

Funnily enough, when I originally went in for my screen test, that set was already built.

Angelina came up, and as soon as we said hello, I thought, This is going to be great. I'm really going to love doing this with her. And I did. And then I was very excited to do the movie after that.

I was amazed and upset by the looks I got just walking around the studio... It illuminates the ugliness and the beauty that exists within each of us, and that's what this story represents to me.

I love doing the stunts. It's as simple as that.

The Phantom, as well as being backed up by that music, it just so was a role that I identified with so powerfully. From the first second that I walked on to perform.

I was getting to bed about 10 P.M. so wound up and not getting to sleep by 11, and because I was putting the prosthetics on for five hours, I had to be up at 3 in the morning.

I always find stuff in my characters to relate to.

I started singing for The Phantom in January, and we started filming in October and I sang all the way through to the next June. In fact, I was singing for about two months before I even knew I had the role.

I had to go and sing with the musical director of the film, Simon Lee, who is just incredible, and it went great. I sang with him about five things, things we'd worked on. And then I went to sing for Andrew Lloyd Weber.

I love a girl with a good sense of humour, who is confident but who has a sweetness to her - that melts my heart.

I love to spend a lot of time on my own. I can seriously go into my own head and often love to let myself travel where I don't know where I'm going.

I remember when 'Grease' came out, I used to force my mum to try and grease my hair back, and it was never long enough, and literally I'd be screaming at her, 'Do it. Just do it!'.

I was born in Glasgow. But my family is pretty much from a little town called Paisley, famous for its cotton mills and paisley pattern.

I wear a lot of Brioni and Ferragamo and Dolce, all of those kind of things.

I've had broken bones and cuts and dashes and tears from movies, but when I was five, my mom put the biscuits up high so we wouldn't be helping ourselves. So, one day I asked to stand up on a chair to get a biscuit, and it fell, and the corner of the chair went right into the side of my eye, and it made a big hole in there.

In Scotland, I'm just like a lot of other guys, but in America, I'm seen as a very strong, masculine guy.

It was always a dream as I was growing up. I would watch movies, mostly American movies, and be so engrossed in those stories, all I wanted to do was be there. I wanted to be part of that romance or that fantasy or be that warrior or that struggling soul who finally makes it good.

It's always more interesting to make a movie about what is relevant in your society. What's the political global backdrop? What are our threats? What are we vulnerable to? Because that's what an audience vibes on - that is what people are interested in, universally.

Manscaping and all of that is not my thing. I'm more of the Clint Eastwood kind of guy.

So many actors get caught up in their technique, and to be honest, I see it really getting in the way. I see them forcing things. I definitely do my best work when I'm free of that. But I think as an actor, I work really hard in preparing the roles.

There's a great sense of achievement, testosterone, fun, being able to live out your masculinity when you play an action role or an action-adventure or a real tough-guy role.

To me, it's always good to retain a sense of wonder and never good too big for life, like you've seen it all before.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

President Johnson and I have a lot in common. We were both born in small towns and we're both fortunate in the fact that we think we married above ourselves.

The fact is I've been in Massachusetts for the last two weeks, and it seems over the last few days that the price is increasing by the hour at the pump, so there needs to be an aggressive investigation.

In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.

Working-class Americans have waited too long, close to a decade in fact, for an increase in the minimum wage. This has been the second longest period without a pay raise since the Federal minimum wage law was first enacted in 1938.

The fact is, Latinos now own their own lives and I believe they can afford to look back without judgment.

The fact that it's science fiction gives you the license to do anything you want to do.

It has to do with the fact that Ford, for all his greatness, is an Irish egomaniac, as anyone who knows him will say.

I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.

I think the fact that I'm so well known to be gay makes it very difficult to have a convincing relationship with a woman on screen. It wouldn't be at all difficult for me to kiss a woman - I'll kiss a frog if you like.

People expect us to be different, but we're not. We're very similar people, and it's because we're so similar and close to each other that we make each other laugh - in fact we make each other laugh more than we make anyone else laugh.

I can't tell you how hard I worked the last year. In fact, I worked so hard that I know I can't maintain that same work level in 2001, so I've got to quit something.

The miracle of light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slowly moving, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades. It is a river of grass.

The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.