I've realised I need a gnawing, nagging, anxious doubt when I wake at 4 A.M.

When I realised I had a facility for humour, I latched on to it, and it gave me confidence and I built my personality around it. So I subconsciously made myself become the funny one so that would be my label rather than the ginger one or the red-faced one.

I realised that if you get yourself labeled as the funny one, people don't look any further. I've used that as I've got older. It's controlling: I decide what part of my personality you're seeing. I don't want you to look at me, I really don't. I don't want you to comment on my clothes, my hair or the way I look.

It may be cliché at this point, but no doubt, product is king, and they need to establish what the Ford and Mercury and Lincoln brands are to the consumer.

Although I was a shy child, I was also a bit flamboyant.

I went from an unemployed actor's life to doing stand-up comedy, and that was fortuitous. It's not the usual way the crow flies, going from being in a TV sketch show to playing one of Shakespeare's finest characters, but, hey, that's the way it has happened.