I happen to have a public profile. Ditto newspaper editors. It's a result of what I do, not an end.

I think we all have a slightly gay gene inside us, don't we? It might be 0.00001 per cent as mine is, or one per cent as yours is.

Yeah, all drama teachers are very effusive, very demonstrative, very emotionally open, very big, and gesticulate a lot, and are very physical.

Guide dogs for the blind. It's cruel really, isn't it? Getting a dog to lead a man round all day. Not fair on either of them.

I am of the very last generation who didn't have computers at school. As we grow old we'll become something of an aberration.

When I was a student I was very, very ambitious, completely immersed in my comedy career. I never had that period of reckless hedonism that you should get out of your system in your youth.

I knew lots of Irish ladies in my life who would say daft things and then would just say something incredibly truthful in a very simple way with simple language - a few well chosen words that would take an intellectual five minutes to express. I like that.