John Lone

I grew up with art from the innocent age of ten - with art, but with no sense of identity.

I don't want to sound pompous, but I really think your gender doesn't necessarily dominate your sexual activity.

I never grew up with a mother's hand - that's why I will forever be insecure, I think, in that primal way.

I didn't have parents, so I lived in people's homes... And because I grew up with no parental role models, I learned to become my own friend, eventually my own father and my own mother.

I know people look at me and try to make conclusions about me immediately, based on the obvious, let's say.

I'm not involved with the female world.

I have not lived so abundantly, full of family, full of continuity and history.

If you come from a normal family, you immediately start playing the role of a boy, a girl a man or a woman, but I'm sure you'll agree with me that those are only roles, limited roles, at that.

I really need to be alone. I can't deal with someone sleeping next to me.

But as a woman, I really started feeling vulnerable on the set, and I really felt that it was important that I should not be open for invitation or making myself look as though I was waiting for something.

An extraordinary diva would never sit by herself.

I have no prejudice against male or female.

When I was preparing for the film for tree weeks, with David Cronenberg, I had a lady friend come over.

So, I lived at the Beijing Opera, I ate there, I learned a craft. And the money we made went into the company.

The beauty of it is when you can just show up and hit the notes.

I wasn't playing a drag queen - I was playing an extraordinary performer.

I am not well educated or bright enough to be politically clued in, but I hope in the film that I'm going to shock a few people, win a lot of people over.

The point I'm trying to make is, I'm really quite neutral. I have not been conditioned.

But I really want to be an artist, so therefore I have to live a little bit like a monk.