Americans like the British kind of quirkiness and the strange accent. They find it kind of cute or something, with a certain charm.

After studying in Sheffield, I went down to London to do my post-graduate degree at the National Film and Television School, embarking on the movie that would eventually become 'A Grand Day Out.

The nice thing about animation is that you can realise your inventions without understanding all the hard theory.

We can do things that we never could before. Stop-motion lets you build tiny little worlds, and computers make that world even more believable.

Like my father, I would never as a child throw anything away, keeping old toys, electric motors and bits of broken machines under my bed in what I called my Box of Useful Things.

If you respect the audience enough, they can take onboard many things.

We have to look forward and keep filming new films and not get stuck in the past.