I was a little geeky kid anyway. If I wasn't shooting little stop-animation films, then I was playing computer games or Dungeons & Dragons.
As a kid, I loved doing puzzles, solving riddles, and reading mystery books. I also loved animals and always had pets.
Well, when I wasn't playing with a football I used to play with 'Star Wars' figures as a kid. Hanging out with Chewbacca and Luke Skywalker is how I passed the time when I wasn't kicking a ball around.
When I was 5, I started taking singing lessons, and then, after 'School of Rock,' I started taking guitar lessons. I would always write songs and play them for my friends, and I would play my guitar on the set a lot.
Once my sister was older, she and I would do lots of hobbies together. We took dance lessons and put on shows at home; tap dancing on the granite fireplace, which must have mortified my dad.
As a lad growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, I played both Gaelic football and soccer and loved them both.
When I was a child I loved my dolls and I was practically born with a needle in my hand. I really had an aptitude for sewing - my mother taught me. I even learned to embroider when I was very young and I made the most fantastic dresses for my dolls. So I thought I could be a designer.
I was a huge fan of comedy and movies and TV growing up, and I was able to memorize and mimic a lot of things, not realizing that that meant I probably wanted to be an actor. I just really, really amused myself and my friends with memorizing entire George Carlin or Steve Martin albums.
When I was young, I wanted to be a writer or painter. I was always writing stories, and I excelled at drawing. My teachers encouraged my art work. When I was 9 or 10, I began learning piano and started writing music.
I'm a regular person. I'm a regular guy. As a kid, I played games. As a kid, I liked poetry. As a kid, I liked drawing. And I never felt the need to stop doing anything. I never lost interest in them.
Basically, my work is play. It never actually feels that way - I'm always aiming to attain that state. But I get to do for a living what I did as a child for fun, and that's pretty cool.
I guess I never grew up. I was still reading kids' books in high school and college. I was always interested in writing or illustrating children's books, and I started collecting out-of-print books when I was about 10 years old.
I started doing karate when I was 11.
'Only Fools and Horses' was just one of those shows that could keep on going and going, that excited me. 'Hartbeat with Tony Hart' and 'Rolf's Cartoon Club' were my huge favourites, though. I used to love drawing and always sent work in to the show.
I was a very creative child. I played the saxophone and piano, and I was always writing poetry and stories, or drawing in my notebook. I just tried to express myself through as many creative outlets as possible. And in high school, I started to get really into photography and videography and would spend hours working on it.
I always liked doing all sorts of different things. As a kid growing up, I was always drawing and painting - always doing art. But I also loved movies and music, so as I started doing everything, I liked every aspect. It's not really that I am a control freak; it's just that is what I love.
In the second half of primary school, I liked live-action shows and giant-monster movies, and then in junior high, I got into regular movies.
When I was really young, I was convinced I wanted to be a visual artist. I would paint and draw and make crafts.
My dad gave my brother and I a camera to film our football games when we were 10 years old so we could see how we could get better. Then one day, we decided to pick up the camera and film whatever we were doing.
When I was a school kid, I used to read lots of comics. This started me on drawing. I would make my own comics about my teddy bear, whose name happened to be Ted.
I've been drawing as long as I can remember. I think all children draw as soon as they figure out the thumb and can grab crayons. The only difference with people like myself is that we never stopped drawing.
I've played piano and guitar when I was younger.
As a kid, I used to sing, dance, I was into dramatics. I would love to pursue being an actor, but not as such as a hero.
I am a gamer. I became a gamer since I had kids... much more than I used to be when I'd play 'Madden' and 'NCAA Football' in high school and college.
I know that I loved music before I loved movies, simply because I didn't see movies as a kid.
