Quotes

[on seeing Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) for the first time as a child] It was like an awakening.

You know what, despite my complaints about The Phantom Menace and Episode II, when Episode III comes out I'll be first in line. I genuinely love it.

Every person should have their escape route planned. I think everyone has an apocalypse fantasy, what would I do in the event of the end of the world, and we just basically - me and Nick - said what would we do, where would we head?

I always loved horror and that's sort of the reason we decided to make the film. We were nourished on those sorts of films, so it was a labor of love.

Chris Martin's a good friend of mine. I'm actually Apple's godfather. He's an old friend and we've been mates for quite a few years now.

Doctor Who (1963) was a big part of my childhood so it was a great honour to be in it.

But I think there's plenty of British comedy that Americans have never seen that they would like but sometimes things just get through.

Both me and Edgar are firm believers in never underestimating or talking down to an audience, and giving an audience something to do, to give them something which is entirely up to them to enter into the film and find these hidden things and whatever.

As a certain kind of threat, as monsters from the id, they're more affective as aggressive killing machines, but I think the whole point of the zombie as Romero framed it was that it's us. They're like larva. They just keep coming.

Because once the word got out that we were making Shaun of the Dead (2004), we didn't want people to think we were backtracking or changing our minds.

And also, isn't the root of the word zombie from somnambulist, which means sleepwalker. By the very running immediately stops them from being zombies.

American audiences tend to be more expressive than British ones.

[Shaun of the Dead (2004)] I wrote Spaced (1999) with Jessica Hynes (aka Jessica Stevenson), who plays Yvonne in the film - who is our savior that comes and gets us at the end.

I used to lie in bed in my flat and imagine what would happen if there was a zombie attack.

In England, we don't have any guns whatsoever.

It's the very British thing of reserve and keeping everything shut in, that's what people do with their emotions, shut the curtains on them.

I think that the joke and the ghost story both have a similar set up in that you kind of set something up and pay it off with a laugh or a scare.

I think at its best the American sense of humor is the same as the British sense of humor at its best, which is to be wry and ironic and self deprecating.

I don't know about doing a sequel. I think you can retroactively damage a product by adding to it.

I just love listening to the laughter.

I loved playing Shaun, he's not that different from me.

I mean, yeah, I'm sure that Python and the other things have paved the way for a greater understanding of the British sense of humor, but I don't think it's all that different than the American sense of humor.

I once showed a holiday video to my entire family and forgot there was a point where I flashed. I only realized about one second before it happened and couldn't get to the remote in time to stop them all from seeing me pull down my trousers and reveal myself. My sister screamed and my mum said, "Ooh, that's changed.".

Being the Doctor? I don't think I'd do it for two reasons. One, I'm really loving doing movies. I'm really enjoying working in the US. Second, I really love Doctor Who (2005) and I'd hate to have to sit down every Saturday night and have it be me. David's (David Tennant) done such an incredible job, he's gonna be a tough act to follow. It would feel awful if I just went and balled up the franchise by just being rubbish.

[on taking over the role of "Scotty" from the late James Doohan] I didn't want to do an impression of James Doohan, because the guy's a legend. I wanted to make it a tribute to him. His son, Christopher Doohan, was on the Enterprise with me. He was my assistant, so I was able to talk to him about his experiences with his dad.

[on his How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) co-star Megan Fox] She's really sharp and actually a bit of a geek. Queen of the geeks - the most beautiful geek I've ever met. Even if she did keep pointing out I was old enough to be her father.

Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It's basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating.

After a barrage of tweets on the matter, allow me to clarify, I am not in the running for, nor do I have any desire to be the next Doctor. I actually haven't watched the show since I was in it. I'm very method that way.

[on Ricky Gervais] Publicly he has zero humility. He would never say anything nice about anyone. He's incredibly competitive and it's not enough that he be the best, everyone else has to die horribly. In person he actually has some humility and is very sweet. He can be a nice guy.

[Will Ferrell] is a great example of a guy who people aren't sure about when he does something serious. I really loved [Stranger Than Fiction (2006)], which was a serious film he did, but the audiences didn't turn out so much.

[on Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)] Not as good as the first by any means - the thumb in the lava at the end is one of the most ridiculous moments in any film, ever.

[on the death of his comedy hero Rik Mayall] It is a terrible loss, he was a true pioneer and an incredible force. His peers and him were as important to comedy as Sex Pistols were to music. They shook things up and changed it for the better. For me, The Young Ones (1982) will always be his signature performance. Rick was just a character for the ages. I'm really sad.

[on J.J. Abrams directing Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)] He's very, very keen to make the film in line with the original three in terms of the mode of production. It's being shot on film, they're using a huge amount of physical effects, puppets, masks, stuff that will make it feel very much continuous with the original three even though its set 30 years later. And it's going to be awesome. I think it's going to drop bombs on the world. It's going to be absolutely amazing.

The beauty of Point Break (1991) was that Kathryn Bigelow took a ludicrous idea, cast Reeves/Swayze/Busey and made a classic. Good luck remake.

(On fame) It's like jumping into a pool full of sharks.

[on the first time his daughter was seeing Yoda in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)] When he appears, I saw her sort of sit up. She looked at the screen and then she looked at me and then she looked back at the screen and she watched it for a bit. And then she said - "Daddy, he's real!". And I kind of like burst out crying. I was like - "You're my child!" And it's because he's there. He's there interacting with Mark Hamill. Even if he was CG, we'd still know he wasn't really there because he's a sort of a little long-eared alien. But the fact that it was a puppet who's existing in the same space as Mark Hamill, talking to him, it made her believe in him in a way that CG would never do.

[on "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial"] This was a film that was between Star Wars' for me. I remember hearing about it when I was on holiday and my stepdad was excitedly telling me all about this "brand-new Spielberg film." As he'd obviously done Raiders of The Lost Ark before then and Close Encounters of The Third Kind, I was already somewhat aware of Spielberg. It was another film that had a massive box office impact in the States after Star Wars came out and the idea of the "blockbuster" had just sort of been born; this was the next huge one I think. I remember going to see it and it really made me cry. I was wearing one of those parkas and I put my hood up to hide the tears; it made it look like I was wearing a snorkel. I started crying towards the end and I remember putting my hood up because I was embarrassed about showing emotion [laughs]. But I absolutely loved it and I even went and bought the soundtrack on cassette from Debenhams which was across the road from the cinema. I would just listen to that on a loop - the whole soundtrack from beginning to end, over and over. I was twelve when it came out; I might have gone to see it on my own - I can't remember. I do remember that I took my little sister years later (when it was re-released and it came back round again) to show her and I was convinced she was going to cry but she didn't. I'm pretty sure I went to see it on my own - I seem to remember lining up to see it. There was a cinema in Gloucestershire called the ABC - it's not there anymore, it's a bar now - but that's where I saw all my formative movies. I remember lining up for it and not really knowing anything about it. In those days, prior to the internet and prior to any kind of concerted film journalism for young people, there was nothing, only really what you'd seen on Film 82 or whatever. It was extraordinarily affecting for me.