My dad was quite a forbidding figure. I realise now that that was mainly because he worked so hard. He wasn't unkind, but he was a presence.
From Mark Gatiss
I'm terribly nostalgic, but I'm with the Elizabethans who thought nostalgia was a disease. It's a dangerous place to be because you can get caught up in it.
I grew up with low self-esteem. I didn't think I was very pretty. I had glasses, red hair and was generally quite a spod.
Fear is an underrated emotion. And that's why I think it's very dangerous to try and cosset children from it. A healthy scare is as good as as a healthy laugh. In fact, they're two sides of the same coin. There is a desire to shield from the knocks and bumps of reality.
At school I briefly wanted to be a palaeontologist, but I was no good at chemistry and physics.
When I was seven or eight, I was bought a fantastic book called 'The Movie Treasury of Horror Movies' by Alan G. Frank; it became my bible. It's packed full of the most amazing photos and is still fantastic to look at.
Europe is so much the home of Horror, with its myths of vampires, werewolves, witchcraft and the undead, yet it's like those myths were exported to Hollywood, leaving Europe the room to develop a new tradition as a way of processing its traumas, particularly the two world wars.
One of the pleasures of the original 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' is how incredibly ghastly they are. The ugly sisters have their eyes pecked out by crows.
Even though it's meant to be the season of jollity and goodwill, there's something delicious about the anticipation of a Christmassy ghost thrill.
Even when I was a child, I always wanted to be older. I realised just in time that it's a mistake and to enjoy my youth while I had it.
5 perspectives
3 perspectives
2 perspectives
1 perspectives