I grew up on a farm in a small town where you do or say one thing and everybody knows about it. You see it happen there's always the town gossip - 'Oh did you hear about so and so or did you hear what went on in this household?' So I learned at a very young age just to keep my mouth shut.

There are a lot of downsides to being male. We age faster and die younger. But give us this: we're lifetime baby-making machines. Women's reproductive abilities start to wane when they're as young as 35. Men? We're good to go pretty much till we're dead.

When I was younger my whole sense of self-worth was based on whether or not I was working which was awful. And I had a baby at 20 years old so it wasn't just about me. At around the age of 30 there was a stretch where I wasn't working - certainly not on anything I liked anyway - and I started to do other things.

You hit a certain age and - especially because of TV - the young cooks coming up say 'You're a sellout because you're doing something other than what you should be doing.' 'Top Chef' is a double-edged sword for me: There's a whole group of people who will not come to the restaurants because they assume I'm not in them anymore all I do is TV.

Love with very young people is a heartless business. We drink at that age from thirst or to get drunk it is only later in life that we occupy ourselves with the individuality of our wine.

At a young age I was interested in comic books which was really how I learnt to read. The name Cage came from a comic book character called Power Man.

What I really tried to do with Helen was make her show this sad side of her. She was married off at 16 was so young and living in this castle that can't leave because of how she looks and married to a man she hates and three times her age.

Music has always been my protection against the world from a very young age. I feel safe inside of a jam.

I could always sing from a really young age but my voice was really weird. I used to make my mum turn up the radio every day in our house. She was well into music so I got that from her.

With the song 'This Christmas' I wanted to do something that was kind of different. I mean Donny Hathaway is an amazing artist. So I wanted to bring my flavor to the song so when people over the age of 45 or 50 hear it they'll be like 'OK he did his thing with that record.' It's like I can appeal to everybody and not just a younger demographic.