I seldom feel comfortable in a theatre. I always feel like I own a cinema. I feel equally happy in an empty one as a full one. Probably happier in an empty one!

If you've got time to waste, you might as well waste it listening to people.

I don't feel I have to defend myself for being English or for being Irish, because, in a way, I don't feel either. And, in another way, of course, I'm both.

It's the way that I think about the world, and the way that I like to tell stories - I don't think you should get too heavy. There's enough out there, in the world, with violence. I think that comedy lightens the heaviness [of the world].

It doesn't feel like you're preaching, if you can say something in a joke.

I don't even subscribe to writer's block being a truthful thing. I've had writer's laziness quite often. But I think it's all about sitting down and facing down the blank page and doing it, and I've always been ok at that.

When you've got good actors, they're going to come up with good stuff, but you're never quite sure how the dynamics are going to work between them.