I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.

Oh, I could spend my life having this conversation - look - please try to understand before one of us dies

We all die at the end, but does that nullify everything? Would most people rather say, "I wish I hadn't been born?" Once you're born you'll have to die, now is that funny or sad?

You go in and meet the head of BBC One and get an assurance about not dumbing down. And then, of course a few months later, he's been replaced by someone you haven't met.

Filming takes a lot out of you. It really does. It's immensely demanding, and you have to put the rest of your life in the icebox until you do your final shot.

I have several times made a poor choice by avoiding a necessary confrontation.

The main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.