Andra Day

The album 'Cheers to the Fall' is really kind of me breaking out and being like, 'Listen, I don't care about criticism, and I don't care about possibility of failure. I'm going to do it. And if I do fail, well then, here's to it.'

When I heard Billie Holiday's voice, Nina Simone's and Ella Fitzgerald's - there was something about their voices to me that was such a different texture than what I was used to listening to at the time. Hearing those jazz voices were so different, and I think I just gravitated toward it.

If I'm serious, yes, I'd like to have done what Shakespeare did... to act and write. You learn so much from acting. One of our great writers, Alan Bennett, does both supremely well. When I write a story, I tend to speak it aloud as I'm writing it.

I think that sometimes people don't understand that a costume that has to be worn every day and doesn't change the whole movie becomes iconic. It's very important because it requires a different design process, since you have to make something that people aren't going to get tired of looking at.