We took up the offer with the BBC, and that was Monty Python's Flying Circus. I didn't have to submit my ideas to the group. I used to turn up on the days we recorded with a can of film under my arm, and in it went.

I loved Monty Python for the wordplay--this sense that you didn’t have to squash your intelligence to be funny. In fact, you could walk right into your intelligence and nerdiness and self-doubt, and that could be funny.

Romanes eunt domus

I'd grown up loving English films. I was a huge Monty Python fanatic as a kid.

John Cleese was with a group called Cambridge Circus, who had come to New York, and we became friends. Years later that produced a certain team effort.

The whole idea of creating saints, it's pure 'Monty Python.' They have to clock up two miracles.