"One of the classic albums. Played it to death. I was pissed off when it came out, it was when the Bunnymen had just split up and it would have inspired me with the band. When he gets it right, Michael Stipe, he’s just brilliant. It’s not that kind of American music that makes you feel queasy like The Eagles, it’s more indie. When you go to America and see some of the natural beautiful vastness of the country, it moves you onto your kneecaps, the prairie beauty of it. ‘Find The River’ - when I heard that it was instant choking up. I went up to my missus at the time and didn’t know if I could speak. I wrote ‘Nothing Ever Lasts Forever’ after it. I don’t know if it was inspired by it. It made me like a type of American that I’ve never liked, the Mark Twainy kind. For some reason it connected with me, but the last thing I’d like to do is buy a pair of dungarees and go net fishing in a stagnant pond. But each to their own – Stipey obviously does it. The videos and the bit in ‘Man In The Moon’ where he does the little shuffle and the Elvis “hey baby” - when I saw that I thought, you twat, you’ve got it completely right, and here’s me hacking about with some half-baked solo songs. And they were half-baked, some of them from Mysterio. But after Automatic they did too much and a lot of it wasn’t up to that standard."

"Most people know Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson album, but what's interesting is that in the early '90s, he actually went into a dark, weird phase that French people don't really like. They consider his music from that time weak. But for me, it's the best. It's porn, it's queer, it's rap before that was a thing in France. It's just him mumbling obscene things on drum-and-guitar heavy production, really raw and tough. At the same time, it's poetic. The contrast is interesting: it's beautiful but dirty. On this album, Gainsbourg is hiding behind nothing. You get everything: the obsessions, the lust, the weaknesses, the scars. You see everything ugly and everything beautiful."

"I’m gonna say Psycho, because Tony Perkins, when you look back… He’s such a great actor, Tony Perkins. I miss him so much as an actor. He died not too old. I mean, he wasn’t that old. He died too young. And when you watch Psycho, God, what a great acting job that is to portray that. I mean, just indelible what he does. That famous scene when he was with her in the sitting room, and she’s like, “Why don’t you put your mother in a home?” and he kind of gets upset with her. I mean, Tony Perkins was one of the greatest actors. I loved Tony Perkins in the movies, so Psycho was my Hitchcock movie."

"It comes down to my specific brand of comedy – I really enjoy comedy that takes things to different places. Best in Show had already been out when I saw it, and it was the first improv sketch film I saw – it was my first mockumentary. And I noticed that the way that they do it is just so amazing. I was in love with Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy, who are amazing in A Mighty Wind as well. But Best in Show is so good because it was so evocative of a time and a place, this dog show that goes on, and I’d never seen, like I said, a mockumentary, I’d never seen improv."

"I just watched, on New Year’s with a bunch of high school friends, The Breakfast Club, which I hadn’t seen in years. I remember being very affected by it but I couldn’t believe how well it held up, and I also couldn’t believe how well I actually knew the movie — like, I remembered every frame of that movie. It’s such good storytelling and it’s such a perfect blend of comedy and pathos. I kind of underestimated the effect that John Hughes had on my consciousness. He really taught, I think, a whole generation of people empathy. It’s kind of a marvel, that movie. So that’s certainly one of them; I have to put that up there."