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I really think if you take away a character's obstacles then there's no comedy.

I think maybe even one of the reasons I became an actor was actually to hide. I mean, it sounds paradoxical because, of course, people are standing up in a public place and encouraging other people to look at them. So that's not the conventional definition of hiding.

I think I may have become an actor to hide from myself. You can escape into a character.

As an actor, there are so many different people to hide behind.

I manage to hide in my movies.

There's nowhere to hide in the theatre. You can't be the one in rehearsal who doesn't know their lines.

With comedy, you really want to work things out beforehand.

It's that TV thing. You can be in the biggest film of the year and it will still not have the kind of impact a TV series has. Once you're in people's living rooms, that's it. There's no hiding place.

To listen to your own silence is the key to comedy.

There are lots of actors, and you need a way to stand out. Writing comedy sketches was a way of doing that.