I used to do stuff at college. I could do voices. I could make some people laugh. I wasn't the class clown, but I knew I had this skill.

I want my work to be judged, not me.

I wasn't a naturally confident, extravert, outgoing person.

I'm an entertainer. I don't go round saying I'm a paragon of virtue, so that is clearly not in the public interest.

I've always been drawn to discomfort and that limbo of unease you get between comedy and tragedy.

If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence.

If you do something very successful, you will then be defined by it.

My father worked for IBM. My mother raised us kids. There were six of us, and a couple of extra foster kids at any given time.

People regurgitate the same old cliches and it becomes like a photocopy of a photocopy of something that's vaguely interesting.

The great thing is that the funny side of getting old is fuel for my comedy.

The tabloids operate in an amoral parallel universe where the bottom line is selling newspapers.

There is a strong ethical dimension to the best comedy. Not only does it avoid reinforcing prejudices, it actively challenges them.

What I don't like is dance music or hip hop or any of that sort of thing.

When I see friends from school I think they've all grown old and I've stayed the same.

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

Actually, bizarrely, in America, I get more appreciation from the odd, unusual stuff I've done, almost because I'm not, if you like, famous in America as I am in England.

Going to a grammar school, you mixed with all sorts of different types and I used to listen to how they talked. When I did my imitations, I could sound like someone really rough, or I could sound like a cabinet minister.

I always find it easier to portray myself as being unlikeable and idiotic; to actually play a character that is likeable and engages the audience is far more difficult. It's a more subtle kind of challenge.

I don't like comedy that I think is bad comedy, where people are trying to be sick for the sake of it, where there's no intellectual point behind it. I like stuff that's got an underlying point of view.

I'm a huge fan of Jack Lemmon, he was someone who managed to tread that line between comedy and tragedy and sometimes give very big performances, but they were never over-demonstrative and they were never not based on a kind of real truthful human being.