If you try to be funny, you're not being funny.

I had to kiss Ruthie Henshall once with a cold. It was the final romantic moment in She Loves Me; as we separated, I noticed this arc of glistening mucus threaded between us.

I don't like other actors much. The industry tends to attract insecure, needy people.

I definitely don't see myself as an actor. I don't even have it on my passport. I've got 'writer and electrician' on my passport. I don't want anyone to think I'm an actor.

I'm a working-class former apprentice electrician; at the age of 14, if you'd told me I would one day be standing on a stage with Mel Brooks, I'd have thought you were off your head. But these things can happen.

I'm a big fan of Elmore Leonard, and I've read Ian Rankin, Christopher Brookmyre and so on. But I'd never read a crime novel that made me feel emotional at the end.

The biggest problem I have doing my acting is having to interact with other people. I think if it wasn't for my wife and my kids, I'd probably be a hermit.

A critic once described me as an 'amiable beanpole.' I got it printed on a T-shirt.

I've always been fascinated with Ireland, especially Northern Ireland, having lived in London in the '80s when there was an Irish republican bombing campaign there.

Some of the best times I've ever had in my life have been because of acting and through acting. But I'm not interested in the game of acting and being an actor and auditioning and all that stuff.