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I was probably a bit of a mimic when I was a kid, and I used to imitate people.

I was a mimic when I was a child. I mimicked the teacher and made friends that way, actually. That was a very subversive activity, because I was a goody-goody who never got in trouble. But if I went off in the corner and mimicked the teacher, people loved it.

I discovered very early that it wasn't quite enough for me to imitate people.

I have always been a good mimic.

A lot of things you just stumble into: relationships or ways of putting characters opposite one another that really worked. So then it's not always so much about imitating other people, but imitating yourself, at least in your thinking.

There is a very thin line dividing characterisation from impersonation. I've to make sure I don't cross over into mimicry.

Quite honestly, if I were doing work related to a living being or historical being where there was visual or audio recordings available, I would find that extremely difficult because I don't know how you would avoid the process of mimicry. And mimicry, to me at any rate, is a very dull prospect.

I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes.

When I did my first few television specials, my illusions were so advanced that it took a couple of years before the other illusionists could even figure out what I was doing, let alone try to imitate me.

All writers are mimics, and I'm not interested in picking up somebody else's style or voice.