I've always wanted to do a real comedy. I haven't done enough, and it seems silly not to do more, considering the fact that people tend to laugh at me.

The danger with playing a part that defines you is that it swallows up everything else.

I meet people who are famous, and it's made me realise that fame has huge lifestyle disadvantages. I'm nervous about that. I don't want to become a celebrity.

Somehow I find it easier to inhabit characters if they are a little bit pathetic. I do seem to have an affinity with pathetic people.

Generally when I'm filming something, I have a sort of exaggerated, comical, sort of grotesque version of the same scene running parallel in my head. With this process, you get to let it out of the box a little bit.

People behave differently to TV stars and film stars; it's to do with the scale of the medium. Film stars get hushed awe, TV stars get slapped on the back. Neither is good for you. Famous people don't hear the word 'no' enough.

Anybody who was a politician at one stage - when they were at the "I'd like to be a train driver" stage of their lives - must also have thought: "I'd like to make the world a better place if possible." So, I think that's why most politicians go into it. They don't want to take over the world and most go into it for good reasons and then, presumably, are beset by endless things stopping them from following their natural inclination to do the right thing.