David Baddiel
I'm very committed to anti-racism and gender equality - political issues, but not party political.Collection: Equality
My show 'Fame: Not the Musical' is about the fact that fame is seen in two ways in our culture: either as a glittering bauble we desperately covet, or as a narrative of tragedy and despair. My own experience of fame is a third, mundane way, which often involves being mistaken for someone else - Ian Broudie from the Lightning Seeds, or Steve Wright.
I always think of Ireland as a place for complex ideas and prose. I like Irishness. I like Irish culture and Irish literature.
I went to a Jewish primary school and all my parents' friends were Jewish.
Frank Skinner was a terrible flatmate in some respects. He never cooked and the cleaning lady refused to go into his room. But he was brilliant because he was very, very funny. You could just sit around at home and have a laugh without having to rely on any social arrangements.
I certainly don't think comedians are more depressive than any other walk of life. I have had clinical depression, as it happens. The stress of performing didn't help, but it wasn't about being a comedian in itself.
I wasn't thinking about becoming a children's writer. I just have an idea and if it sounds like a kids' book I'll write a kids' book. If it's a film or a play, I'll write that.
Most people who know me well say I am almost autistically myself. I like to never change.
I am an intellectual.
I like trolls. Some trolling I find very entertaining. The sheer abuse can be hilarious, and so random and absurd.
I spend a lot of time on social media and people ask me if the abuse I get is upsetting, but working in comedy has built up my skin - I'm used to hecklers.
Without wishing to sound pretentious, my basic standard of happiness is to do with being who I am.
If you're going to talk about the devil, at some point you've got to meet the devil.
Our culture is being shaped by trolls and the Holocaust deniers are a very extreme example of the trolls. Ignoring them has not worked. It doesn't mean that confronting them will work completely but I think it's a debate we have to have.
Unfortunately, we no longer live in a culture where what is spoken about and what truths are told and what lies are told are objective any more, so my personal feeling is that you have to try to take them on.
Neurosis, an obsession with stupidly named food, bookishness - these are all OK to class as attributes that come hand in hand with a name that ends in 'berg'; the only possible exception being the money thing, although clearly we are better at accountancy.
Why is it kind of acceptable to say that the Germans are better at penalties, but not that blacks are better at boxing? Is it simply that you're allowed to stereotype a group perceived as oppressive, but not one perceived as oppressed - which is why it's fine for women columnists constantly to rail against men, but never the other way round?
I've always been an insomniac, and as I've got older that's got harder.
I don't want to be one of those old people getting up at 5 A.M. to potter.
Mum died on a Saturday - apparently that's quite common. Dad already had dementia, and my brother and I had to let him know the news. Forty-five minutes later we had to tell him again. We spent the whole of that Sunday reminding him over and over.
Furious protesters don't come after you for jokes at the expense of people; they come after you for jokes at the expense of their gods.
Now 'South Park' - they are interested in blasphemy. They're interested in creating offence for its own sake.
I am not a very good actor.
I think 'Friends' is brilliant and it was massively underrated in this country for a very British reason, which is the assumption that because the cast is beautiful, it must be vacuous. Whereas in fact, it's brilliantly, brilliantly written.
I've seen episodes of 'Friends' which are as funny as any sitcom I've ever seen.
I remember watching an episode of 'Seinfeld' in which George can't understand why security guards can't sit down. He gets obsessed with it and eventually buys a chair for a security guard who sits down and goes to sleep. The shop gets robbed. That's a brilliant extrapolation of what is essentially observational comedy.
The first proper car I had was an old Nissan Micra.
I thought I was great at football. For a long time I thought I could have been a professional if I'd wanted to.
An academic is what I would have been if I hadn't been successful as a comedian. I've never had a proper job.
All of my children's books are attempts to tap into what I believe to be children's, and to some extent human beings', fantasies.
He's a very sweary sort of bad tempered curmudgeon of a man. That's the joy of my dad, that he's not a conventional nice grandpa, or indeed a conventional nice dad.
When I first started, stand-up comedians writing novels was thought of as a great encroachment on the art form and people got very angsty. But comedians are storytellers so it's really a hop, skip and a jump.
If you go on stage, or on TV, then there is an impetus that comes about to be a persona. A completely different character. But when you're someone like me, you don't want to have a persona. I want to be exactly who I am on stage.
I can't really do characters. I don't do voices.
I feel uncomfortable if I'm not my self in any situation.
I'm not saying Jews should only play Jews... I personally think actors should be allowed to act.
The majority of Jews are secular... the Nazis never checked if anyone was going to the synagogue or eating kosher.
I admire identity politics for raising the fact that there are terrible and constant microaggressions against all minorities.
Because I've been around for quite a long time and done a lot of different stuff, there's a shifting idea of who I am.
I can't bear the idea that I might be in any way deluded about myself.
Everyone is complicated, but when you're famous, you have to be pigeon-holed. By doing different stuff, that's rubbed up in complicated ways against the culture.
When I first started on telly, I used to get quite a lot of fan mail from Indians saying it's great that an Indian is on!
It gives me cancer to have an idea but not do it. Whether I get into trouble for it is not as important as the need to chase the idea.
Baddiel is a slightly quizzical name - it comes from Latvia but people thought it sounded vaguely Hindustani or something. I thought it might be a good idea to write a body swap movie, like 'Trading Places' or 'Freaky Friday,' about somebody who believes they are one thing but suddenly become another.
I had probably never met a non-Jew until the age of 12.
We were much poorer than many families.
Dad was hyper-furious about money all the time and we didn't mix with high-flying or media families.
It was definitely a challenging upbringing. My parents were by no means perfect.
I am a comedian. I do feel I have to put my experience on a public stage. As an artist, that's what I do. Even though that sounds poncey.
My theory as to why I first became a comedian is that my mother was always keenest on my younger brother, Dan. It doesn't bother me now, but it did then and the way I compensated for that was to publicise myself as myself - to tell people who I was in 100 per cent detail, going into every crevice of my life.