One of the things I worked on with this album was focusing on the lyrics and the melody more so than everything else. A lot of my songs have started with the music and the texture, and then the lyrics and melodies are all framed inside of that. I wanted to do the opposite with this one and have melodies that could stand on their own without the instrumentation. I wanted it to sound just as natural if you were walking in the woods, whistling them as they do with accompaniment. A lot of these songs started with melodies that I would hum into my phone while I was walking somewhere. “Dancing in the Club” and “All Fucked Up” were both written that way.

I don’t know. How do you start a project?

What I notice or discover has to grow in my mind. I always wait until the ideas and impulses are so strong that they invade my mind and I have to pursue them.

If so, stop that. Stop thinking, and act.

It all depends. I attack and then keep attacking them until they tell a story and maybe it’s boring or discordant or I’m not interested in that story anymore, so then I put them away. Sometimes for a year. And then I take them back out and if I disagree with something strongly it’s kind of exciting because I can really be loose on the canvas. When I’ve worked on something for years there are moments where it could be a little scary to be so loose, because you’re destroying so many hours of work. But I think that’s why when I’m a little delirious in the middle of the night the magic happens, or it doesn’t. So sometimes I then work toward building different parts of the painting, and then there’s a new story. If it doesn’t have a story to tell, I’d eventually declare it’s a dead painting. In which case, a la poubelle , to the garbage.

I always acted to be able to afford paints.

So living with my dad for sure influenced me.

I really admire Meryl Streep. I am a very big Bette Davis fan. And I like Anjelica Huston, who also directs.

I don’t want my children to look at Netflix and see me on screen in the arms of someone who’s not their dad.

Knowledge is good for life. Life is what you play off for acting.