Derren Brown

I wore a cloak for many years, I had long hair, I may have had a drop earring for a week and I fancied myself as a philosopher poet but was somewhere more in the gay female leisure pirate.

I think you can be sceptical, and still do things that are in a joyful way, and ultimately you are on stage entertaining. If you let your philosophy get too much in the way of that, then you are failing as an entertainer.

Guilt's too strong a word, but there is this niggling worry that I'm a grown-up doing a childish job and it would be nice to do something more useful and to reach a number of people with an idea you think is important.

There's something a bit embarrassing about saying you're a magician. It immediately suggests all these horrendous cliches, let alone that you're a grown-up doing a child's job.

If you aim to be controversial for the sake of it you'd end up with a very thin and meaningless show.

I do always look back and feel faintly embarrassed by anything I've done in the past. I think that's not a terrible thing, because if you don't do that, how are you growing and moving forward?

In recent years there's been a lot of philosophical theorising about how important magic is, and how it takes us back to a childlike state of astonishment. I think all this is just nonsense. Magic isn't meaningful or important other than how you're performing it in that moment.

Kindness and compassion aren't political qualities even though they get politicized.

A lot of unconfident kids do tricks because it's the quickest route to impressing people. You can stand behind something amazing and people think you're amazing.

Clearly if a hypnotist could make someone to steal £100k just by telling them to, the world would be a different place, and I suspect that hypnotists wouldn't bother doing shows in pubs or dodgy Spanish holiday resorts."

Since turning 40 I happily moisturise - I have what's called a regime - but I'm always in two minds because I have no idea if I'm completely wasting my money. They feel nice when they are on but I can't stop wondering, 'Am I succumbing to the same nonsense I try to fight against in other areas?'

Things I've done in the past always make me cringe a bit. When I think back to being a Christian. Proselytising to people, that makes me cringe.