MARK GATISS

One of the pleasures of the original 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' is how incredibly ghastly they are. The ugly sisters have their eyes pecked out by crows.

All films speak to their times. It becomes obvious only after.

I grew up with low self-esteem. I didn't think I was very pretty. I had glasses, red hair and was generally quite a spod.

I think one of the few faults in Dickens is that mostly his lead characters are blanks - who is David Copperfield, who is Oliver Twist? And yet he takes such joy in populating the rest of his novels with these fantastic, grotesque people like Pecksmith and so on.

The thing is, horror is a big part of 'Sherlock Holmes.' Doyle also wrote a lot of great horror stories, so there's a lot more horror in 'Holmes' that people possibly think of. There's a lot of curses and mysticism and real scares.

'Monty Python' is now more recognised by the films than by the TV series.

'Son of Frankenstein' is never talked about in the same tone as James Whale's 1931 'Frankenstein.' But it should be. It was Boris Karloff's last appearance in the Frankenstein series and stars Donnie Dunagan, then a child actor.

I don't care what other people think any more about me writing my own parts.

I always wanted to do Restoration comedy. It seems like so much fun.

I'm a great believer in the beauty and the power of surprise.

I used to go to the gym regularly and swim an awful lot, but that was when I was unemployed and knew leisure intimately.

I love going to galleries, particularly the National Portrait Gallery.

The reason I wanted to do 'The First Men in the Moon' was that there is something so challenging in the combination of space travel and the Edwardian period.

When I was seven or eight, I was bought a fantastic book called 'The Movie Treasury of Horror Movies' by Alan G. Frank; it became my bible. It's packed full of the most amazing photos and is still fantastic to look at.

Sci-fi and fantasy used to be a TV staple throughout my childhood. Then it just stopped dead. It was seen as culty, a minority interest.

I'm terribly nostalgic, but I'm with the Elizabethans who thought nostalgia was a disease. It's a dangerous place to be because you can get caught up in it.

My dad was quite a forbidding figure. I realise now that that was mainly because he worked so hard. He wasn't unkind, but he was a presence.

I am a gay man who loves James Bond films and snooker - all kinds of working-class pursuits.

Slightly forgettable movies can sometimes make great musicals.

I had a girlfriend before I ever had a boyfriend, but it was just a phase.

Even when I was a child, I always wanted to be older. I realised just in time that it's a mistake and to enjoy my youth while I had it.

I think a lot of people who say they are bisexual aren't.

Fear is an underrated emotion. And that's why I think it's very dangerous to try and cosset children from it. A healthy scare is as good as as a healthy laugh. In fact, they're two sides of the same coin. There is a desire to shield from the knocks and bumps of reality.

At school I briefly wanted to be a palaeontologist, but I was no good at chemistry and physics.

It's a cliche, but it's true that all the fun lies in baddies, grotesques and comic roles.