I was trying to do one-liners and it took me years to realise I just had to be myself. My fear was if I was myself and no one found it funny, I'd have nowhere left to go.
Given this voice, I know it does sound like I've come from money. But my dad was Canadian and my mum Hungarian, so it's not like I have some high-society, upper-class English background.
I think actually performing on stage when everyone's facing you and you're one person facing them, that is quite a lonely thing in a strange way. You have to be quite insular from everybody else, you've got thousands of people staring at you and you're just on your own.
Our family home, a large house in Hampstead, was sold to Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. I remember being told that 'someone who eats bats' was buying it.
I go to the British Comedy Awards and, you know, quite a few people were making jokes at my expense. It just made me feel awful, because I am there with my wife and she has gone out and bought a dress. And it is my big night and I won, and yet the overriding experience was that of nastiness.
It's a weird one: nobody notices when a brilliant comedian is fat or has sweat marks under their arms. Peter Kay isn't in the best shape and neither is Ricky Gervais, and it doesn't matter. Still, I like to feel like I'm transforming into something quite cool when I go on stage.
