'The Thing from ANOTHER World' was the first MOVIE that really scared me. But the one that made me want to make movies was 'The TALES of Hoffman.' That's my FAVORITE film of all time. It's a FANTASY film. It's an opera. I never get tired of it.

My FATHER was a welder on the second-highest sail, so the Opera HOUSE has a SPECIAL PLACE in my heart.

The OPERA HOUSE guidelines have from time to time been amended, whether it's for other sporting EVENTS or other CAUSES. The guidelines have always been STRETCHED in the part and the commercialisation of the Opera House has always been there.

We grew up listening to a variety of music, such as Gospel/Christian, R&B old/new school, jazz, blues, Mozart, Mary Poppins, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, just to name a few. I LOVE opera, too - went to state in HIGH school as a soloist.

I'm by no MEANS an OPERA BUFF.

I GOT to talk about GLOBAL WARMING on the No. 1 soap opera in the country.

Growing up as a CLASSICAL musician, you're TAUGHT a LOT about outreach and about how people aren't being taught music in school. But you don't have to study music to like it. And a lot of the music that people like - be it jazz or rock or opera - is stuff they haven't STUDIED.

My mother was an OPERA SINGER and my FATHER is a clarinet PLAYER, composer and CONDUCTOR.

I had OPERA TRAINING for THREE years, and I have three ALBUMS out. I also did a Broadway SHOW. I'm an actor that sings, so it is in my blood. It is in my system.

Then I TRAINED as an OPERA singer for four years before I STARTED singing professionally as a POP act.

The ENGLISH NATIONAL Opera does have some terrific productions, which are ACCESSIBLE, and they're not too RIDICULOUSLY expensive.

One year, I was a patron of a new opera. It was, to put it kindly, unpleasant to the ear. The friends I went with hated it. Keeping quiet about my contribution, I was outed when one of them, reading the PROGRAM at the RESTAURANT during DINNER, SAW my name.

The real exertion in the CASE of an opera singer lies not so much in her singing as in her acting of a role, for nearly EVERY MODERN opera makes GREAT dramatic and physical DEMANDS.

European operetta and German singspiel provided the American musical its COMBINATION of spoken dialogue and song; the INCLUSION of dance traced a lineage to French baroque OPERA. But what a DIFFERENCE!

I LOVED WRITING 'Lost.' It was LIKE a never-ending OPERA, in a WAY.