My sister and I both benefited hugely from the great security that our parents had given us, and then we went off and squandered it all rushing around in showbiz.

If you have a great part, you have the opportunity to give a good performance. The greatest actors get the best parts, and the best parts make the greatest actors. There are plenty of people who are as talented, who just never got the part.

The improv technique does one of two things. It either makes you raise your game, or retreat into a corner and decide to find a new career. But you do feel like you want to match and develop things.

I actually don't subscribe to the notion that comedy is easier than drama. When you're trying to be funny and you're not funny, that's really terrible. It's a horrible feeling.

I'm not Welsh and I didn't know that much about Dylan Thomas , and I saw that he's a huge icon of Welsh-ness.

Every now and then, I feel terribly uncomfortable with what I'm working on, and then I think maybe I am an artist. I'm not very articulate about it, but I do know that you have to follow your gut.

When we get christened or married or die, we drift naturally in the direction of the church. And in moments of crisis, when our spiritual Tom-Tom is no longer telling us what to do, we find ourselves scrabbling at the vicarage door.