Quotes from Richard Ayoade

I don't really know what my personality is anyway. I don't really have one.

I suppose I sort of like effects that have some organic elements rather than ones that are entirely generated by a computer. Just because, no matter how complex the algorithm is, it's still an algorithm.

Why have a pet hate? Why should it be confined? My hate is both wide ranging and total.

I've always felt that actors in my experience have a very good and accurate instinct about whether something feels right or not. They just have a sense because they have to literally do it.

I actually prefer night shoots to days. I prefer being up. It's easier for me. I'm more of a night person.

I was directing before I started doing 'The IT Crowd.' It wasn't something that led on after acting I guess. I was sort of doing this stuff before acting.

Louis Malle is maybe one of my favorite directors, but I love Tarantino.

As in, I think 'Badlands' is one of the funniest films of all time: "Every day I wish I was carried off to a magical land, but that never happened" is one of the funniest lines in any film.

I'm not sure I'd hire myself in anything. I certainly couldn't be an actor. That would be terrible. For everyone.

I've only ever really been in shows of friends, so I don't know exactly what happened. I think I'm incredibly cheap to hire. That can buy some traction. I'm as cheap as it's possible for an actor to be legally.

I find performing very difficult. It's difficult to be a good actor. I get very nervous, even though it sounds disingenuous, because you could legitimately go, 'Well, why do it?'

The act of seeing any film generally is you knowing more than the characters, even if it's the classic Hitchcock shot of two people talking and a bomb being under the table. Part of the pleasure of it is seeing where people go wrong, and the irony of situations.

My parents didn't go to university and weren't brought up in England. They hadn't heard of any other universities other than 'Cambridge' or 'Oxford.'

I'm not a terribly social person, and so I have to really like people to work with them.

I only ever privately tell people stuff for the scene. And I often ask what they feel is right. Normally, by the time that we're filming, if it doesn't work, it always the script.

A lot of comedies are based on the reaction shot. You have one person doing something stupid and one person is generally the straight man, and the laughs generally come on the reaction of the straight man to the funny thing the other person has done.

I like Roy Orbison's video for 'I Drove All Night' because it's so literal. It is just a man driving throughout the night. I like that silliness. To be in a video is a ridiculous thing. It's almost impossible to do it without any humour.