Matt Lucas Quotations

We're going to kill some characters off in the new series

I loved all the camp comics of my childhood, Kenneth Williams and Frankie Howerd and John Inman, but school gave me a very bad feeling about being gay and then, when I was about 12 - bang, along came AIDS. I can't think of a single positive thing about being gay at that time.

We've found that our lives are beginning to change, that the press, for instance, has taken an interest in us and our lives.

I think that's natural because it's no longer new to them. Our main approach is to carry on doing what we do, not believe our own hype and do what we've always done, which is try and make the funniest show possible.

I was hoping that the appeal of the show would stretch beyond the anglophile and comedy-obsessed.

We were friends for four years before we started writing together, so that is the foundation on which our partnership is built.

We're trying to fill the gaps in the collection. Several schools have opened since the museum was originally created, and for other schools, we simply don't have any items to display.

Success came to us at an age where we could enjoy it. We went through a lot of hard times, so we appreciate success all the more now.

Their street signs keep getting nicked. And when we did the live tour, when we did get to Wales, it felt really good to be there.

I told Bernie Taupin that his best lyrics were for Song For Guy just because it doesn't have any words in it. But there you go... I'm a wind up! But a good Elton song for karaoke is I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues... "laughing like children, living like lovers, rolling like thunder under the covers..." Everyone can join in!

My favourite song of Elton's is... it's a tricky one for me. I'm a proper fan and I've probably seen him in concert about a dozen times before I even met him. Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, which isn't in this film... but whenever I see him, I always tell him that Passengers is my favourite song because it's one of his least auspicious ones.

I played Thersites and I remember we were also doing some places out of town before starting our run at The Old Vic in London and we were at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford and I walked on stage and I've got an opening speech that begins: "Agamemnon, how if he had boils?" And I went on and said: "Agamemnon..." And a woman in the front row just went 'tut'. I thought: "I've only done four syllables, give us a chance!" I got one word out and the audience were already tutting. It was worse than any heckle I ever had doing comedy. So, I'll stick to gnomes.

People will love something very much or hate something very much. But the great thing about a sketch show is that if something comes along that you don't like, something else will come along in a minute that hopefully you might like that.

I think this [Gnomeo & Juliet] is the closest I ought to get to Shakespeare to be honest.

I mean comedy is something that's very personal and people have strong opinions about.

It's important to hold something back, though, because quite frankly my personal life is pretty dull and I don't want to bore people with it.

It's very likely that graduates, current employees and retirees have some wonderful pieces of Deer Park history in their closets or garages.

I'm just glad that on a budget like this I don't have to make any of those hard decisions because I feel it must be a real job to direct this, as there's so much going on.

I'm a very recent convert to the gay scene. I went to a party a couple of years ago and met a very nice man who took me under his wing and started taking me out to clubs. It was a revelation.

The most useful form of time travel would be to go back a year or two and rectify the mistakes we made.

I am a bit of a daydreamer.

But we did see the process develop. I remember going to the Rocket Pictures base and they had something like 40 people there, drawing. They didn't know what the characters looked like yet and I remember on the walls seeing 30 or 40 different versions of Juliet. So, it was then that I realised that someone's got to come in and make some really executive decisions.

I don't expect to be thin, but I'd like to feel a bit healthier.

I finally learned to love myself by dressing up as Geri Halliwell.

If I ever play Hamlet, it'll be in a dress!

It was very pleasurable and easy and it was nice to work with friends... people I already knew, people I didn't know but I now count as friends. There is a lot of hard work that goes into the movie but I can't claim to have been any part of that.

Keep yourself busy if you want to avoid depression. For me, inactivity is the enemy.

If the worst that happens is that I wake up and see a picture of myself and a headline saying, 'He wasn't very funny last night', then I've got nothing to complain about.

What fun is life without a bit of showing off?

Honestly, I was just happy to get the work. I was chuffed to bits. I know David Furnish and Elton John a bit and I remember David talking very excitedly about it. This was going back four or five years even, when we were doing Little Britain at the Hammersmith Apollo. I'd lost my voice that night, but still did the show. I remember thinking: "God, they're going to think that's my voice and I'm not going to get in the film!" But it's just been a pleasure to be a part of.

Comedians don't have a monopoly on suffering. But creative people are sometimes fortunate enough to be able to incorporate their most traumatic experiences into their art.

People see my impressions as a great skill and I am flattered, but there are things I can't do that everyone else can. I can do funny voices and funny faces but I can't drive.

When I left school I was full of angst, like any teenager, and I channeled it all into comedy.