What I think improv is great for is making dialogue more natural.

Comedy writing is taking the brief thought and going with it.

Sometimes films about oppression or suppression can be quite maudlin and quite dour. Sometimes you need a little sugar with the medicine and I think of myself as the little sugar.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be serious, like Daniel Day-Lewis. No one really dreams of being a comic actor, do they? Now I realise how stupid that is - and it's because comic acting isn't taken seriously enough. It's a discipline. You know instantly - either you're funny and getting the laughs, or you're not.

I think there's something in the fact that it's hard to be good looking and funny. You have to have an oddball quality; people have to sympathise with you to find you funny.

The fame thing has happened very gradually, so I've been kind of lucky.

I don’t know if I’d do an action movie because I don’t know if I could keep a straight face honestly, I just think it’s so silly. Like I love watching them but I can’t imagine me doing one. Actually, you know what I’ve done, just for fun because I didn’t think there was any way that I could be in a superhero movie, so I’ve done a scene in the new “Thor” movie, just for that. I just do like one scene, which was quite fun.