My father, an architectural photographer, was an incurable tinkerer, maker and mender.

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.

Get out and make films. There are so many cameras now to suit any budget, so there are no excuses.

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

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.

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

Gromit was the name of a cat. When I started modeling the cat I just didn't feel it was quite right, so I made it into a dog because he could have a bigger nose and bigger, longer legs.