The future's come and gone; it's a thing of the past. That once impossibly exotic expression 'the year 2000,' for so long evocative of silver suits and robots in pinnies, now feels antiquated.

Innovations, instantly followed by a demented lust for them, now arrive with dizzying speed, not just daily, but in one-hour delivery slots.

I have no disagreement with the aims of anti-vivisectionists.

We're chipping away at our capacity for wonder. When hologram TVs eventually go on sale, they'll cost £20,000 and be bought only by those strange, heroic, friendless men who live in flats piled high with giant 80s mobiles and DVD players weighing eight stone."

What is scary to me is silly to somebody else. CG isn't scary to me. It's like comedy - comedy and horror are quite similar, in that there'll always be somebody who'll say, 'I don't think that was funny.' And it's the same with things that are meant to be scary.

I didn't set out to be a villain in film. I'm a character actor, and if my first movie was a comedy, I could have played a geek just as well.

People say, 'When are you going to do serious stuff?' I look at them as though they were crazy. My serious stuff is my comedy. That's how I make my points.

I've been keeping a diary for thirty-three years and write in it every morning. Most of it's just whining, but every so often there'll be something I can use later: a joke, a description, a quote. It's an invaluable aid when it comes to winning arguments. 'That's not what you said on February 3, 1996,' I'll say to someone.