I did a little film called 'Nina,' a small role. I played a French girl who was a nurse to Nina Simone. Zoe Saldana plays Nina.
I feel like Nina came into my life to help me grow, and since I met her, everything in our careers has been amazing.
I thought about giving up the sport, but I have a lot of good people around me: my wife, Nina, my family. Everybody keeps helping me to be positive and moving forward.
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.
I had this voice when I was in high school, except nobody thought much of it then. I developed it by imitating singers I admired - Alison Moyet, Boy George, later on Nina Simone.
My heroes: Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Nina Simone.
Girls are taught to sing high and pretty, like Antony, not low and from the guts like Nina Simone. But we're slowly trying to change that. There are so many things we're not told growing up, and it's our true feminist responsibility to take the truth to the people who need to hear it.
The male singers who had the same range I did, when I was growing up, didn't do much for me. But put on Nina Simone, Carmen McRae or Nancy Wilson, and I'd be in seventh heaven. Female vocalists just did more with their voices, and that's why I paid more attention to them.
I always liked Nat King Cole. I always wanted to go my own way, but I always favoured other singers like Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald - I loved Ella Fitzgerald. There are so many of them. Nina Simone was one of my favourites - Johnny Mathis.
I listen to Radio 4 and put the iPod on shuffle. I like the randomness of, say, the Stones, then something from Nina Simone, Nick Drake or Bob Dylan.
