I go out with my band six months of the year and the rest of them with the Blues Brothers.
I just want to keep writing characters who are interesting and complicated people and interesting roles for women, in TV or film or in theater. I think that's like my 'Blues Brothers' mission.
I had just discovered jazz, and I started singing in a kind of blues cover band at the age of 15. We called ourselves - it was a terrible name - the Blue Zoots. We couldn't actually get our hands on zoot suits, nor did we dress in blue. We did covers of Screamin' Jay Hawkins and kind of Blues Brothers repertoire stuff.
I love Muddy Waters and Nina Simone. I also watched 'The Blues Brothers' movie over and over.
Look at the opening sequence of 'The Blues Brothers,' which starts at the prison. The way it was filmed, it does not look like a comedy. I thought that was great.
I want to do a romantic comedy that nobody thought I could do. And then do a comedy with Dan Aykroyd that is totally different from 'The Blues Brothers.' I'm a comic actor, but I'm an actor, too.
After 'The Blues Brothers,' I wanted to do a good musical number with real dancers and shoot it correctly.
We played one warm-up gig at this bar that was kinda like that bar in 'The Blues Brothers' with the chicken wire. This place called The Brick House, in Housatonic. I really can't believe we're going to play for people in New York City. I'm terrified, but it's a small enough room. But it's really just supposed to be for the fun of it.
On long car rides, we would always listen to the 'Blues Brothers' soundtrack and try to emulate everything that Aretha Franklin was doing. There was soul and grit in it that I think a kid from the suburbs really needed.
My first car was a 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback in red, like the one in 'The Blues Brothers.' I painted a Union Jack on the roof. I was absolutely in love with it until I destroyed it, which broke my heart!
