Everything in politics is so stage-managed.
— Ben Miller
I go back to L.A. as often as I can, and even if I'm there on business, I always add on a few extra days for pleasure.
You meet every different kind of possible person from different ethnic and cultural background, and after you while, you realise it's all just people, isn't it?
I've been going bald since I was about 17. I'm still hanging on to my hair for dear life, but I do sometimes wonder - should I get a wig?
I very much wanted the perfect nuclear family, and I came from the perfect nuclear family, but like so many people, that isn't the way things have worked out.
This is a shameful thing to say, but I've never really got that 'grown-up' mind-set. I have to buy forks? Why?
Comedy is my proper job. It's what I should be doing, and when I do other bits like my science series, I miss it.
Actually I don't mind the gym when I get there, but I hate the psychological battle I have to go through to get there.
More than anything, I enjoy making people laugh.
Personally, I think people need to get over this 'being offended' thing. Being offended does not give you the right to silence people. I get offended by things all the time - it's just part of life. The right not to be offended is not a human right, especially in a democracy.
It's my theory that comedy is going to die out in the year 6000.
I enjoyed learning French, and I enjoyed speaking French.
Nobody wants to get divorced.
I'm one of those people that read a newspaper.
I'd like to see the argument made for greater worldwide federalism, not just the European Union.
I'm very lucky, I had a very amicable separation and very amicable divorce, but it was still horrendous.
I got my first Mac in 1984. I've got an Airbook, iPad, iPhone, the lot. I love that blend of technology, creativity, and design.
Much as I respect Russell Brand's point of view, I'm in the opposite camp to him about voting. I think it's enormously important to engage with the electoral process.
Initially, the best thing about being in L.A. was the girls - they loved me. It was like being a pop star.
I did a very stupid diet where you have three food groups, and you never eat them together. It's so bloody tedious; I'm losing the will to live just describing it. I managed to stay very thin because you spent your life wandering around starving hungry looking for a chickpea to go with a chicken leg.
I used to fantasise about being able to stay up all night; now I fantasise about how early I can go to bed. Tragic isn't it?
For my mother, everything stands in relation to her Welshness; the fact she married an Englishman seems to be something of an issue. She's kind of anti-English... anti-imperialist.
I'm really spectacularly thick in all areas of my life except comedy and science. I'm crap at everything else.
Bob Dylan - I will listen to any of his songs over and over.
I studied physics at university, and I'm still a sucker for an experiment or scientific theory.
Definitely the most important thing in my life is being a father.
Comedy's about things the way they are. It's about the world as it is, not the world as we would like it to be, and science is the same, really.
I was on holiday in Ibiza, having a lovely time, writing a book and looking at the stars every night and generally not having a care in the world. Then I got sent the script for 'Death in Paradise.' I couldn't get back to England in time for the auditions, so my girlfriend filmed me on her camera, and I sent it off via email.
I'm a huge fan of French comedy. The French play comedy in a slightly different way than we do: they play it with a sort of realism that we don't necessarily often do ourselves.
I'm writing a science book - a sort of compendium of all the ways I've found of explaining things to my artsy friends over the years.
The first-ever job I had was in a play, 'Trench Kiss,' with Caroline Quentin and Arthur Smith.
Science is a hobby, and I'm really into it, but it's not my job. My job is to learn about comedy and to make people laugh. Science, for me, is probably a bit like Danny Baker's love of football or Rod Stewart's obsession with train sets.
I was an early adopter of everything from Myspace to Twitter, and I think they're just fads, like CB radio.
I've always loved science, but I was never going to make much of a contribution. I'm better off having science as a hobby.
L.A.'s hippies are actually quite scary - more like Hell's Angels than the Haight-Ashbury hippies of San Francisco.
My enthusiasm for L.A. stems from my father, who was a lecturer in American literature at the University of Birmingham. Through his work, our family did several house swaps with L.A. families. It was a dreadfully daring thing to do in the early 1980s; there was no Internet, so you had no idea of what you were getting into.
I'm not a 'suffer in silence' type; I'm a 'let's throw money at the problem' type - I've done reflexology, reiki, psychotherapy, counselling. I've never actually had analysis, but I'd like to try that sometime.
Children basically need one thing: to be played with.
My father was always clowning around. It was a huge influence on me. In my family, everything is turned into a joke.
I've turned down all sorts of good things accidentally, too. I read the script for 'Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind' and thought, 'This makes no sense.' Then I went to the cinema to see it. Well, what an idiot.
Every meal is so important and colours the rest of your day - my whole day can go into a spin if I make the wrong choice at lunchtime!
I'm always a bit wary when people say in interviews, 'I'm at the happiest place of my life that I've ever been.' I think, 'Really? Are you?' Life is a mix, isn't it?
I get dissatisfied really easily, and I have to constantly keep moving; I have to constantly keep doing things. I find it very hard to switch off.
Things like 'The Office,' and arguably shows like 'The Only Way Is Essex,' are comedies, just using real people in real situations.
There's something wonderful about that sort of Poirot, Agatha Christie-style investigation: cross-questioning all the witnesses and checking their stories, looking for means, motive, and opportunity.
I slept on a friend's kitchen floor for a year and a half.
I'd rather sink with a bad theory than swim with muddy pragmatism.
Everyone was doing alternative comedy. I thought I'd distinguish myself by just telling jokes, with differing degrees of success.
I want to get across that science is something that we all have ownership of and we can all take an interest in. We don't all have to understand complex theories, but we should have a working knowledge, like knowing your way round the engine of your car.
On 'Death In Paradise,' I had a CGI pet lizard and had to react to nothing, which was hideously embarrassing.
