years ago we would have been burned for this. Now what I am suggesting is that we've advanced.

I've always called myself a writer/performer, not an actor because I basically write what I perform.

I've always found life quite difficult to explain to people or to myself.

Although I had good hand-eye coordination, I was so tall and skinny and muscularly weak that I just was not well coordinated. But what I started to do quite early on was watch some of the great old silent comedians, like Laurel and Hardy and Chaplin, and then later on Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.

Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.

My hovercraft is full of eels.

Nerves are always a big problem for me, which is why I loved doing American sitcoms. Because you know when you do the take in front of the audience that you're going to do it again afterwards. A minute after you finish, you just go and do it again. So, there's that sort of safety net. And then if you made a little mistake or two, they'll go pick it up, so there's nothing to worry about.