I had just had a daughter, who was three or three-and-half years old, and I had been watching nothing but cartoons. That's really it. There was no YouTube. You're in France and you're raising a kid, so you break out the Tex Avery.

As a child, I certainly had a fascination with monsters and vampires.

I had never experienced anything like the response I got from people for Pirates of the Caribbean, where you meet a 75-year-old woman who had seen Pirates and somehow related to the character, and then five minutes later you meet a six-year-old who says, 'Oh, you're Captain Jack!' What a rush. What a gift. That was the challenge with Wonka, too--to be, in a sense, like Bugs Bunny. I find it magical that a three-year-old can be mesmerized by Bugs, but so can a 40-year-old or an 80-year-old. It's a great challenge to see if you can appeal to that huge an age range.

No one wants to go out mid-sentence.

I can't tell my self that I'm a serious actor. But I'm serious person.

If there's a message to pass to people, I'd say that it's normal to be different from others, it's good to differ from one another, and we'd better look at ourselves first before we start criticising someone who looks, acts, speaks different or has a different skin colour. I'd like to continue, even at a minimal level, what John Lennon had started. If I could do as much as a bit of what he did, if I could contribute to the elimination of hatred among us, that would be a great deal.

I love the idea of changing my look. I think one owes it to the audience, to go out there and give them something different each time, so as not to bore them to death.