We might not know we are seeking people who best enrich our lives, but somehow on a deep subconscious level we absolutely are. Whether the bond is temporary or permanent, whether it succeeds or fails, fate is simply a configuration of choices that combine with others to shape the relationships that surround us. We cannot choose our family, but we can choose our friends, and we sometimes, before we even meet them.

I've only played two sort-of slackers, in Spaced and in Shaun Of The Dead. They're different people, but they have the same kind of everyman quality, particularly as a twentysomething.

Sometimes you just wish you could make a film and then have it on DVD so you can see your mom. But, no, I've never really had that moment. Not really. Not seriously.

I'm simply saying that our deepest thoughts, desires and preoccupations manifest themselves in art, whether we intend them to or not. That's what art is for; it's not cerebral, it's emotional.

If there is no fate and our interactions depend on such a complex system of chance encounters, what potentially important connections do we fail to make? What life changing relationships or passionate and lasting love affairs are lost to chance?

We don't watch the film anymore because we've seen it so many times, so we'll introduce it, walk out and we'll come back in right about when I wake up in the morning and walk over to the shop and everything's changed.

I think we all mistake certain things for happiness. I think we mistake comfort for happiness and we mistake pleasure for happiness, and entertainment for happiness, when really these are just things we use as proxies for our happiness. We use them to cheer us up or try and achieve brief happiness, when really happiness is something much more profound and long lasting and exists within us.