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" I like the idea of letting the music do its own work and the stories being more expressionful - if that's a word - in people's imagination. I've just got a thing about people and songs telling you how you should feel. "

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" I don't really write songs. They're just there anyway, chiseling away at the atmosphere, and suddenly they're like, 'Oh, thanks for coming. Thanks for finding me. We'll share each other now.' "

Johnny Flynn

Write

Now

" The truth is there's always a hum of people playing folk music in cities. "

" What's quite nice about this whole folk movement is that it's born out of genuine friendship. And nobody's infringing on anybody's space. "

" I've always identified as an actor. That's what I set out to do. "

" When I was young, I was being pushed, against my will, towards becoming a classical musician. I had music scholarships; I had to play the violin and do orchestra practice and that sort of stuff. That meant I didn't get to do any school plays. I desperately wanted to do that. "

" I sometimes self-edit when it comes to auditions and go, 'They're not going to cast me, so I'm not going to do it.' "

Johnny Flynn

Going

Sometimes

" The Band mean a lot to me in terms of what I aspire to achieve with my group, as the music they made went against the fashion of the time. "

" It's great being an actor and being part of a play or a film where there's usually quite a big group of people who are collaborating, and your job is really to fit in and share that energy. With music, because I write the songs, it's a broader, more abstract process. "

" I grew up playing classical violin and a lot of Bach and Mozart and the things that Einstein loved. "

Johnny Flynn

Playing

Things

" If you're in a garage band, it's about being better than the band in the next-door garage. But in the folk tradition, it's more a vibe of sharing. "

" I'm a big Bob Dylan fan. I'm also a blues geek. "

" A lot of the work I've done has involved playing quite sympathetic characters. "

" Our job as actors is to invent the things that bridge ourselves with the characters, so you have to build something if it's not there - you try and learn what makes people behave in a certain way. "

" I think the two are kind of synonymous for me; songwriting is like my form of diary making. It's how I process the world. Without doing that, I feel kind of lost. The characters that I play often come out in the songs and the challenges that they face, albeit in an abstract way. "

" Weirdly, my dad didn't want me to become an actor, he was always quite resistant to it. He told me as much many times. That just made it more attractive to me. "

Johnny Flynn

Actor

Always

" We had no money, my dad was out of work a lot, and we never owned a house. It was very hand-to-mouth. "

" I like getting older. I always looked younger than I was, and I found that people wouldn't give me the room to speak. The older I get, it's like, 'Oh, I'm still talking, and they're still listening.' "

" I really love a lot of early Sixties R&B, rock n' roll, and I love performing songs that have that power and soulfulness. "

" I'm not a fan of taking too long in the studio. I always do one vocal take and jump out of the control room, and people push me back in... It's a real turn-off to hear things that are too polished. I feel like I've almost fought for the right to be that kind of musician - we used to be on a major label, and now we're on an indie. "

Johnny Flynn

Control

Long

" If you're trying to do something wholly new, it's hard to fully trust it. But if you use forms that have come before, it lends your music weight and authority. It's also a way to acknowledge that it's not just you who's feeling these things. The emotions are coming through you from a whole history. "

" My thing about demos is that you usually prefer them to the finished thing. "

" The reason I stopped music for a while and concentrated on theatre was that it was more conducive to parenting; having the days free was quite handy. I love them both. I hope I don't have to compromise one for the other. "

" It's not in the mainstream media, but across towns, it is amazing how there are small groups of people getting together and forming artistic collectives - they may not be being overtly political, but I'd say by channelling their energy into community projects, that's a valid political statement. "

" My dad was an actor, and he made it all seem quite magical. It felt like a slightly subversive thing, telling stories, when all of my other friends' parents were builders or bank clerks. It's always seemed quite magical to me. "

" Certain films should only be watched at 40,000 feet. Like, certain comedies and certain, uh, emotionally charged movies. "

" I actually do bits of my writing in sort of incidental spaces - when I'm traveling on the Tube or on a bus. More often than not, it's a reaction to how you feel about something, and if you're sitting down and concentrating on, 'I must write something,' then you can't have a truthful reaction. "

" I definitely asked too many questions of my teachers and was probably a bit facetious at times. "

" I can't remember a 'best gig,' and my brain doesn't work in absolute terms like that. "

Johnny Flynn

Best

Brain

" I try and stay in my right brain as much as I can, but my left takes over. "

" All the adults in my family were actors, so there wasn't much else in terms of role models. I fell in love with that world, being backstage at the theatre. "