My portrayal of Fagin was all to do with my experience in comedy and revue.

I've no regrets. You take responsibility for your actions.

Playing Fagin in the play and film was a small miracle.

Working on a film, you don't get time to develop rivalries, but the theatre is like a little village, and the differences between me, Lionel and Georgia grew.

I'd wanted to be an actor from the age of five.

Fate destined me to play Fagin. It was the part of a lifetime, and I was the only actor to be in the stage production and in the film.

My training was that you fill in the canvas where it needs colour and polishing. You start with the words on the first night and keep adding bits of business.

For me, making the show work was getting belly laughs - like most variety artists. But the straight actor believes you fix your performance in rehearsal and that's it.

Now I can see I was at fault for not being more considerate, but when we were doing the show I didn't think it was my job to be considerate to other people.

My portrayal of Fagin was all to do with my experience in comedy and revue.

Fate destined me to play 'Fagin.' It was the part of a lifetime.

I felt very insecure about whether I was up to recreating my stage 'Fagin' in front of a camera.

I grew up with music hall and revue and was used to filling in the little gaps here and there to get bigger audience reaction.

I love getting up in the morning with nothing else to do except write.

I never thought about settling down. I was obsessed with my career - I was blinkered. I finally met a woman who was worthy of me. Then we settled down and had many children.

I was offered Fagin-type roles, but I wanted to do new things. I could have worked in America, but there was a recession in the British film industry, and I wanted to work in England. I've no regrets.

I watch people constantly.

I went to the London School of Economics to study sociology and psychology on a serviceman's grant.

I would have liked to have been a professor of sociology.

I'd been collecting eccentric moves since I was a kid and didn't even know that the dance step I improvised in 'Be Back Soon' was called a 'pas de basque.'

I'll never forget seeing 'Guys and Dolls' over and over. I used to sit up in the coliseum watching this magnificent musical. Brilliant.

If we destroy the biosphere, then mankind will die. We all waste our time worrying about stupid wars and petty jealousy and greed, and all the time, we're sitting on a time bomb.

My proudest moment was the number 'Reviewing the Situation.' I suspect that, because I gave my all to the role and because I was working with such a fine team of people, it inhibited my future career.

Pressure makes people react in different ways. Some people plunge in, and others take the way out.

Summer of 1967 was one of the happiest times of my life.

The day after the Oscars, I flew back to London to film a television play for Anglia. It was a big mistake because you never really get acknowledged for wanting to work in England, as I did.

The world is always reinventing itself, and so should you. I used to say, 'I haven't started yet.' Sadly, most people don't develop their potential.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

The kinds of shows that seem to work now, the comedy shows, are those which require very little attention. They're superficial and I like articulate comedy.

A lot of people have gotten into comedy because of certain influences in their lives or events that were painful, and I really have wracked my brain to figure it out. I pretty much have had a normal childhood. Maybe it was too normal.

I grew up wanting to make movies, and along the way I suddenly found that I had a career doing comedy.

I really enjoy comedy. It's a real challenge.

I've mainly been in dramas, so this is one of my first comedy kind of performances in Cecil B. Demented.

Well I sure had been looking for a comedy for years without any success.

Comedy is so hard; it's so much harder than drama. The pacing of it, the energy of it.

Stand-up comedy and poverty. Those were my two main endeavors.

It seems like when I first started, people got into comedy because they wanted to be good comedians.

It is really hard to do comedy; it takes a lot of energy and focus. It's rather like music: It's a lot of hitting notes precisely.

This is one of his most human and most amusing and witty novels. The characters are very Indian. I decided that I wanted to do a comedy, so this was just the right one.

The English can be a very critical, unforgiving people, but criticism can be good. And this is a country that loves comedy.

Black Comedy is a farce that is played in the dark, as you know, with the lights full on. It's the Chinese convention of reversing light and dark, and exactly where anybody is at any given moment is the play.

I'd really been wanting to do a television series. I was looking for a comedy.

I think Andy Kaufman is to comedy what the Velvet Underground was to music - it's like, 80 thousand records sold, but everybody who bought one started a band.

Comedy is really not like any other art form in that it's very specialized and varied in it's content, but generic in it's title.

Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty.

The duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them.

My mom and dad are both in stand-up comedy, so that's where I started, that's where I got everything. My roots are holding the mic.

That title, is one of the things I fought for. A lot of people said "But it's stupid, and it's the title of a comedy movie, and people won't take it seriously," and I'm sure there are some people who still don't. But for the most part, people do see that we really have a quality show.

I mean comedy is something that's very personal and people have strong opinions about.