You don't have to underestimate your audience anymore. They'd actually like to laugh a little bit. So, the character came to me and once it's got its grips in you, there's nowhere to go.

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.

You grow up a bit damaged or broken then you have some success but you don't know how to feel good about the work you're doing or the life you're leading.

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.

Even when you're down and blue, just remember that someone out there loves you, even if you don't know it and even if you haven't yet met them. There's someone out there waiting for you, remember that and keep faith. You'll get there.

I went through various stages in my childhood, as we all do, various stages of obsessions with people and things. And I did. I wanted to be the first white Harlem Globetrotter.

I found a girl, fell in love, she had a baby, and i fell in love again.