When I first came to London, I loved hanging around in cafes, smoking, scribbling, dreaming. It was life-affirming and fun.

One of the problems with episodic television of any color is that everything has got to be okay at the end of the episode so it can start again next week. So the events that occur are rarely life-changing. But with film, you can say that this thing only happened once; this is a major thing that happened to these people.

I wish I'd known that one day the geek would inherit the Earth.

Every viewer who ever turned on Doctor Who has taken him into his heart. He belongs to all of us.

I think the most extraordinary thing about fans is the level of excellence that they show in the work that they do. I mean, if you go onto the internet and see some of the fan videos that have been put together, they're just extraordinary; they could be programmes in their own right.

Chris Addison is a stand-up comic, but his ability to act is extraordinary, to be so natural, I've taken 25 years just getting to that level.

I was amazed to go Oscar and win it. It was fantastic getting up on the stage there and looking down. I thought, "That guy looks like Steve Martin, and that guy's like Arnold Schwarzenegger." But it was Steve Martin, and it was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then they have this terrible kind of conveyor belt backstage - literally - where they take you to this big hangar where the world's press are gathered, and they make you stand on a stage, and they introduce you.