Julian Barratt

“I want to do things or write things that make people feel a bit more beautiful or tragic or something because there are so many other things than just funny.”

“When you're really laughing, you feel like a little kid, and nothing matters.”

“Comedians are not well people. Well people are not drawn to creating.”

“My dad wanted to be a musician, so when I started playing guitar, he was like, 'Go for it.' That is what I did for ages; I was in bands. And then I went to university and got into comedy somehow.”

“We did have that, in the background of the character and the show, 'Mindhorn,' set on the Isle of Man, that every episode they would have to mention the temperate microclimate of the Isle of Man.”

“Most comedians are borderline psychotic. It's what makes their work interesting.”

“I could say I'm a writer or that I'm a musician but I don't really do music; I do music to go with things I'm developing. Then I do act in a few things, but I'm not really an actor. I'm not a comedian, but I am known for comedy. I just don't know. I feel like I'm a slightly interdisciplinary jack of all trades.”

“Sometimes it takes you two or three seconds to get your head round a joke and laugh at it. With a snot-bubble laugh, it comes instinctively - almost in spite of yourself. It's caused by something silly - like when a little kid says something unexpectedly bizarre.”

“I did try and do some spooky stand up once, and some of my stand-up had - I tried to do some horror stand-up, but it didn't really work very well.”

“I want to create a world where all the rules are different. It should be magical to enter.”

“I thought I could see how standup worked. I never thought of being an actor - or anything else, really - but I thought, 'I can see how you get on stage and tell jokes.'”

“This business is ephemeral, and you have to maintain a healthy cynicism about it. There's a 'flavour of the month' aspect to it, so you have to keep moving on and mutating.”

“I think with performing, initially I was terrified on stage, absolutely terrified. And I did it again and again and again, and I learned sort of how it works, and then I was able to do it.”

“I can act with either eye, but you've got to be twice as good as an actor to act with one eye. You need to put all your emotions just through one eye and really punch it out of that eye. I found it quite difficult to do at first, and then I found a technique that allowed me to act with one eye, which I patented.”

“For me, there's no dichotomy between being shy or a performer, because I think it's more a way of slightly presenting a version of things to the world.”

“'Galaxy Quest' is a fantastic film.”

“I can't do jokes. I've always come from left field and tried to subvert conventional comedy. I started as a rebellion against that - albeit a very soft and surreal rebellion. It's escapist.”

“It's good to give people a jolt. If they're expecting one thing, it's important to give them something else. If you do something startling, audiences might at first freak out, but then they start to think, 'This is not going to be conventional. I'm going to enjoy this.'”

“I was in a band called Groove Solution. Because there was a groove crisis, and we solved it.”

“I write tragedies and things when I'm alone. Chekhovian dramas.”