Many Republicans have always reminded me of professional W.W.F. wrestlers. They come into the ring all pumped up and acting like they're invincible and that they're going to destroy their opponent. Then they get hit once and fall down and roll around in agony and suddenly seem immobilized by pain, calling for the ref to intervene.

I've never had to get a job as a waiter or anything. I've always been able to support myself in 'the biz.' Which is great. It's really fantastic to be able to say that, because I know it's hard to do.

I'm just always a bit thrown when, in the immediate aftermath of some event which makes us feel like either God's out to get us or He's not doing His job as well as He can, we all still get together and continue to ask Him for help.

The director is the only person on the set who has seen the film. Your job as a director is to show up every day and know where everything will fit into the film.

Magna Carta has become totemic. It is in the comedy of Tony Hancock, in the poetry of Kipling, never far from the front pages in a constitutional crisis.

Part of my reason for 'Session 9' was to break out, to destroy the illusion of me as 'Mr. Romantic Comedy Guy.'

I don't think you can teach people how to be funny. You can make suggestions about how to speak a line or get a laugh, but it has to be in them.

I was doing a college show for the first time, and there was this 20-year-old gay male who's been diabetic his entire life. He said, 'I really wanna get into stand-up.' I was like, 'Oh, my God, do you realize how interesting and inherently funny you are? Go do all the comedy that you wanna do.' I care about that.