Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I just work so much and so hard that I love the idea of being around family, friends and my animals quietly at home, just chilling out.
What does annoy me is when critics use me to ridicule my audience. All the stuff about 'Tesco housewives' and 'the blue-rinse brigade.'
I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. But then a lady at the youth theatre asked me if I'd ever thought of going to drama school.
I need to have a sleep before a show and a quiet hour. I need to get dressed following the same routine. And I like to smell right for a show.
If you've got someone fighting your corner, someone who loves you and you love, and is also really, really clever, the battle is so much easier.
Songs from the theatre can be taken and put on record in a commercial and contemporary way, be reinvented and become standout tracks on their own.
I have my family life and I think it's important to be able to shut the door and keep the door shut, and that keeps you grounded. You stay in reality.
I've got soft features, curly hair with blonde bits and dimples. People think of me as a singer, an entertainer, someone who's always there with a ready smile.
I've heard everyone do 'Bring Him Home' from 'Les Miserables.' When Colm Wilkinson did it, I truly never thought I would hear anyone as good, never mind better.
We're so stuck in our heads with social media that we don't get to meet people and go out to have a joint experience unless we go to a live event, like the theatre.
As a person, Stephen Sondheim is a very funny, very dry and very shy man. I've never witnessed any diva-ish moments, he just always seems so thrilled people are doing his work.
Musicals allow a depth of emotion that you don't get in another form of acting, the chord changes, the lyrics really affect people, so that in two hours, you've forgotten about things.
I particularly like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. Both writers have wit and imagination and the breadth of stories they tell coupled with extraordinary artwork make for fascinating reading.
I love the idea of being on stage and people thinking they know who Michael Ball is, they've got an image and then not knowing and going: who's that? I mean, that's the best compliment ever.
I was very close to my grandmother, Agnes Parry. She was a typical matriarchal leader of the family and the community. People looked up to her and would always go to her for advice and help.
I got involved in the Surrey Country youth theatre which led me to go to drama school where I realised that this was going to have to be my career, and I was really lucky to get big breaks early on.
How many millions of times have I sung 'Love Changes Everything?' But when I see how it matters to people, it gives me the impetus to rediscover it and remember how lucky I am to have a song like that.
That's the only show where, if anyone says to me, 'Is there a role you want to play?', I say, yeah, I want to play Sweeney Todd. Stephen Sondheim's so clever; it's a profoundly brilliant piece of work.
When I was playing Marius in the inaugural production of 'Les Mis,' I contracted glandular fever which developed into a post-viral depression. I was 23 and I couldn't see any light at the end of the tunnel.
The biggest myth I'd like to bust isn't about me - it's about musicals. So many people dismiss the entire art form through highbrow snobbery, but I think a lot of those people would be suprised if they actually saw some.
In 2005, I played Count Fosco in 'The Woman In White' on Broadway. It was a disaster. I was physically run down and terribly homesick and I just knew I had to leave. I lasted three months before the producers released me.
Tapping therapy is absolutely brilliant. Stephen Gately from Boyzone, God rest his soul, told me about it. It's just a little tap that focuses the mind away from that wave of panic and adrenalin that shoots into your body.
I understand the power of music, I understand the therapeutic nature of music, the sense of community that music engenders, so I totally understand why it still goes on, choirs come together as a focal point for a community.
I love a drink. But I've never, ever in my life been on a stage and done a performance with an alcoholic drink inside me. Never have, never would. I've seen people who do and invariably they're never as good as they think they are.
Bacharach has such a brilliant ear for melody and his music has a completely timeless feel to it; I thought it would be great to do a whole album of his music and to record with a full orchestra and big band which is something I hadn't done before.
This was a seminal moment in my life - my dad took me to see the original production of 'Jesus Christ Superstar' at the Palace Theatre in 1973. I thought it was just amazing, so powerful. The idea of using rock music to tell the story of Jesus was incredible.
Ah, 'Kismet,' or Carry On Camel, as we called it. I thought the show was shocking. It was the worst designed production ever but it's got a fantastic score. It's not an awfully good book though. You really have to work hard to eke out any laughs from that script.
When you're on stage and the stars are aligned and the audience is as one and you're guiding them, steering them... It's a feeling of incredible potency, of unity, of such, such joy. It's almost overwhelming to know that you're making that number of people feel better.
As a performer, once you've understood the genre of musical theatre, you can tire very quickly of the two-dimensional stuff. With Sondheim, it's always a challenge. It's difficult and exhilarating and he's so good on the complexities of relationships and on things going wrong.
The first time I encountered Stephen Sondheim was like everyone else: through snatches of old songs people performed in drama school, through 'Send in the Clowns,' which everyone knew. I wasn't aware at the time that he was the writing force behind 'West Side Story' and 'Gypsy.'
When I was starting, I was working with actors who came up through the rep system, and they understood the discipline required: you were never late for rehearsal, you were never not ready to go on, you were always prepared; it was about showing respect to the rest of the company.
We've all sort of been there: It's coming on Christmas, all that preparation is going on, and you just want to escape. You don't want to buy into it. It's a time of year that brings up a lot of memories for people, and if you're missing somebody, it's hardest at this time of year.
The one I really get on with is Princess Anne. Talk about calls a spade a shovel! And she's so clued-up. She's a patron of a number of charities. I've been involved in a couple and she's not just a name. She knows the research programmes that are going on. She really does her homework.
Les Mis' was an amazing experience, to be in the original cast of 'Les Miserables,' and 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' God bless it that was fantastic, at the London Palladium the biggest theatre in London the most successful show that has ever been at the London Palladium, that was fantastic.
I think shows like 'Dancing on Ice,' 'X Factor' and 'Britain's Got Talent' make great telly, but I'd never want to be contestant. I'm far too insecure and competitive. Also, working in theatre, you're being judged all the time - and I'd rather not be told I'm awful in front of millions of people!
When I was 19 and at drama school, a couple of friends and I decided to drive from Guildford through France, down to the heel of Italy and then take a ferry to Greece - in an MG Midget. On our second day, in France, we were in a very bad accident and wrote off the car so we had to go home. But we then flew out instead and went island hopping.