Sadly, I can’t say the same for my Father, who is probably in a different place – Hell.
Actually the best thing I did was to get thrown out by my wife. She’s living with a fitness instructor. He drinks that yellow stuff in tins. He’s an idiot.
I love people who are openly gay in theatre, because they have license to do what they like, and there’s a kind of artistic liberal tolerance thing that goes on.
It’s arguably the best newspaper in the world.
Convoy? Michael, you’re hanging around with a man who uses a collective term for a single vehicle.
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.
It may seem like improv because it flows quite naturally, and a little bit of leeway for improvisation is good, but you have to be judicious with it. So it’s good, but sometimes people deify it. You can’t improvise your way out of a paper hat.
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.
Even if I screw up in my personal life, as long as I’m not destroying myself, I just think, “Okay, I screwed up.” I’m not Mother Theresa.
I like comedy, but I like comedy as a device in drama. It’s more interesting for me to use comedy to seduce people into thinking about something serious. If you want to hit a beat in a drama, you can distract people with a little comedy, and you can punch them in the gut with some emotion.
When I play myself, I want to be a slightly better person. It just agrees. Everything I play about myself is kind of true, but it’s amplified. We all edit, don’t we? If you’re self-aware, you stop yourself – you know how to behave properly.
I’ve met people who’ve dismissed me, and then they find out that they like my work, and suddenly their attitude changes toward me. And I think that’s very funny and very human. But it’s also very unattractive.
The Bible, undoubtedly, is a mixed bag. I don’t see myself coming back to the Church. I do like the tradition. If you come from a strong culture, you can decide what you agree with and what you don’t agree with. If you’re given a blank canvas, it’s almost harder in life.
I think there’s as much profundity and wisdom in Shakespeare, more so in fact, than those in the Bible.
To me, I like and understand ritual and I think it is important. Things that we do that give us comfort are important. Like Christmas, I like to go into a church and hear the carols sung. There’s a comfort of actually going inside of a church, I find them serene. They’re unchanging.
I’m really encouraged by Pope Francis, because I think his attitude is totally laudable.
The irony is, of course, that many of the values that I was raised with, that I think are very important, that I hold dear, are the result of a religious faith.
I am lucky to be in a profession that is not age dependent.
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.
I like the British public. There is something in this country called tall poppy syndrome. You’re good but you’re not that good, pal, OK? The natural state of our nation is slightly miserable, and probably the healthier for it. In America you don’t get a key down the side of your Bentley...