“I've always had live audiences.” — Rik Mayall Quote

I've always had live audiences.

With 1,000-seater venues, rather than 5,000-seaters, there are richer opportunities for sucking the audience in.

You perform for a different audience each night. People who don't understand just think that you go out there every night and do the same thing, but you don't - you have to find out who they are and give it to them.

I had a very happy childhood, happy teenage years and I was famous by the time I was 22. A charmed life.

When I was young, I saw some of my heroes doing it on the telly. We're talking about Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Arthur Lowe, Ian McKellan, Kenneth Williams. These were all guys telling stories to me.

Whatever films I make, the mandate is that it should touch the audiences and engage them from the first scene.

I'm just trying to have fun, and maybe the way I hold myself kind of freaks people out. I don't feel like an outsider, and I think my friends feel the same way I do. Now that we're playing to larger audiences, maybe we're weird to some people. But I'm trying to express what I am.

It's no secret that the media has fragmented in recent years, that audiences have been cut into slivers, and that more and more people get their news from ever narrower outlets.

I think indie films are really important, because they show the studios and the audiences when they see them, great stories. Really interesting, small stories.