I'm not a comic person at all. It never reached me in the north of Ireland, in the '60s and '70s growing up. We used to get stupid comics like 'The Topper' and 'The Beezer,' things like that.

I know I don't go looking for directors. I always wonder why they chose me.

I come from theatre and I always go back every couple of years.

No nation can claim, 'We are an uncorrupt nation, therefore we will tell you what the morals of democracy are.'

Working on newspapers, you're writing to a certain length, often very brief pieces; you tend to look for easy forms of humor - women can't drive, things like that. That's about the level of a lot of newspaper humor. It becomes a form of laziness.

Comedy helped me out in my teenage years. It saw me through puberty and helped me to deal with dating.

It took me a while to figure out the U.S. sense of humor, a lot of trial and error. I would write down jokes to casually tell my American friend over Skype to see which ones he'd laugh at.

The first comedy screenplay that I wrote was Animal House and I always thought I could and should be a director but no one was about to give me that opportunity on Animal House.