Growing up, there was only classical music on BBC Radio. We had to listen to the American Forces Network in Germany, which played pop songs, or the pirate radio boats off the coast.

Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.

I'll always be there because I'm a skilled professional actor. Whether or not I've any talent is beside the point.

I'm every bourgeois nightmare - a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars.

I certainly love doing comedy and feel most comfortable near it.

Humor has the tendency to be funny once. If I tell you a joke, we're going to have a big laugh. But the second time I tell the joke, it's going to be a bit strange, and the third time you're going to ask if there's something wrong with me. So I am very cautious with jokes, but there is a lightness in my work.

Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting. But you can go from acting to being a TV personality to being a radio personality to being a writer to being a producer, to just being a visionary, to voiceover work.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.