It's always bitterly disappointing to people to see how normally one can live.

The more I love the character, the harder it is to get it wrong. I have to get to a point that I can speak for them.

I think quite often, being on the new set is not what you expect. The most serious film can be the most fun. The one that's supposed to be fun can be the most serious. I don't think there are any hard-and-fast rules. I just think it really depends on your director and what the general vibe is.

At the beggining of my career, for me the comedy circuit was a combination of desperation and the fact that it was something I could do. I sort of meandered and really had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I had a go at stand-up, and I was sort of okay at it. I'd say I'm the opposite of someone that has the urge to stand in front of strangers and make them laugh, but the idea of getting up and telling a story and people finding it amusing always appealed to me. So I'd say it was probably more about that than anything.

Definitely the script because you want to be part of an interesting story, you want your character to be a challenge, then comes the director. But essentially it's the script first and whether it's a character that you think you can do.

Stand-up came out of three things. Frustration, necessity and arrogance. I didn't have a great career ahead of me in anything. Someone literally said to me, 'You should try stand-up,' and took me to a venue.

I'm realistic about it. It's been quite some years since I've worked full-time in that area, so I no longer have any material that bears any relevance to my life or the audience. I'd need to take probably a year off, which I wouldn't be prepared to do, so it's a romantic ideal.