The only episode which was completely my idea was for Mitch Pileggi, the actor who portrays Skinner, the Assistant Director of the FBI. He appears often in the series, but only for a few scenes. You know virtually nothing about him. I wanted him to have an episode that was his alone, so I wrote Avatar for him. He even has a scene that's pretty . . . hot [knowing smile]. He was very happy.

You're raising a kid and you give it food and shelter and, most importantly, you give it the feeling that it's special. I think people react to celebrities like that - I mean, they treat celebrities like children.

Dogs are the broccaflower of the animal kingdom.

I don't believe in a conspiracy to hide the existence of extraterrestrial life.

Feelings come and go, unless you don't feel them. Then they stay, and hurt, and grow pear-shaped and weird.

I really like gratuitous nudity. I hate when people go, 'I'll only do it if it makes sense for the movie'. It never makes sense. So I like it - the more gratuitous the better.

As I've gotten older I've become a devotee of 19th-century authors, such as Charles Dickens and George Eliot.