My worst job was packing animal feed in a warehouse in Gloucestershire when I was a student. It was a very strange environment. It was hung heavy with oat dust, the place was infested with mice, and everyone who worked there was over 60, and I was 18. It was crazy. Apologies to anyone who works in animal-feed packing industry and loves it.
When you're a student and you just want some money to feel like you're an adult, you'll pretty much do anything within reason.
There seems to be this tendency toward denigrating romantic comedies as of late because it becomes something sort of cheesy or whatever. Whereas this embraced what it was. As a fan of When Harry Met Sally or Annie Hall, as a demonstration of what romantic comedy could be and should be, I immediately phoned Nira back and said, "Yeah, I'd like to do this. It'll be fun."
I like to work in films, but I'd love to work in the technical side of film. I'd love to work with, say, Greg Nicotero [The Walking Dead] in kind of, like, special makeup effects. I'd probably say, "Good with clay and latex." Although I don't know what kind of job that'd get me.
Bill Hicks wasn't just a comic, he was a crusader against humanity's relentless capacity to underachieve
You grow up watching certain films or admiring certain filmmakers, and to write a love letter to one and have them validate it, it's extraordinary.
The only thing that would deter me at the moment would be the idea of doing one thing for a very long time. There is no doubt in my mind that television is an incredibly auspicious medium right now. It's where a lot of the serious acting is taking place.
In the most basic terms it was about how when we experience art without critical awareness we consent to the ideas being promoted, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the filmmaker. For instance, if you watch a racist comedian and laugh at his jokes, you are consenting to the prejudices inherent within them. Similarly, if you watch a movie which perpetuates conventional ideas about race, gender, etc., you are consenting to them and not affecting change in any way.
The trouble with improv is that it is often about being funny in the moment without any real consideration for the bigger picture.
One thing that irritates me is when people kind of make assumptions.
We don't watch the film anymore because we've seen it so many times, so we'll introduce it, walk out and we'll come back in right about when I wake up in the morning and walk over to the shop and everything's changed.
I was the naughty kid that the teachers liked. I bullied a kid in the 1st year when I was in the 2nd, who then hit puberty like a plane crash and grew into a gorilla who bullied me when he was in the 4th year and I was in the 5th. That's Karma.
If I did a TV show, it would have to be in North London because I'm a bit of a homebody, and my work takes me away from home enough. But yeah absolutely. Television has never been more exciting than it is now.
If there is no fate and our interactions depend on such a complex system of chance encounters, what potentially important connections do we fail to make? What life changing relationships or passionate and lasting love affairs are lost to chance?
Doctor Who was a big part of my childhood so it was a great honour to be in it.
Also, if you watch the film once, there are lots of things that you won't get because there are punch lines in the first act, the setup to which isn't until the second act.
I think at its best the American sense of humor is the same as the British sense of humor at its best, which is to be wry and ironic and self deprecating.
The revolution of video had a massive affect. We grew up in a time where suddenly you could own films. Before, they had a theatrical run, and then perhaps they'd come back, or you'd catch them in a retro cinema.
There are actually quite high profile British TV star cameos in it that you probably wouldn't even notice, that the British wouldn't even notice, let alone the American audience.
The main jokes in this film are about big things, love and life and zombies - we all get that.
Now there's a whole generation of filmmakers who grew up making their own films with video cameras, and have dined entirely on a diet of popular culture. It's been reflected in a lot of their work. It's self-reflective, it's quite knowing, but it's very literate.
The nuts and bolts of shooting a film and writing a film are still really difficult. But what makes it easier is the fact that you know you're going to go to work with your best mate.
Unfortunately the necessity to promote a film sometimes works against it, in that you are forced to reveal information [about it] that in an ideal world you would hold back.
I think the jokes would have been a bit broader and a bit more obvious in terms of the day-to-day of country life.
If one of your best friends is making a Star Wars movie, you're not gonna not abuse that privilege. I defy anybody to say otherwise!
