You either liked Spinal Tap or you were not worth talking to

Everything that I've done so far has had a bigger budget than the last, but I've never ever felt the benefit of the bigger budget because the ideas always exceed the budget. Show less «

I think it's good to have pressure on yourself. The worst crime is to get kind of really complacent. Me and Simon worked really hard on the script and we kind of beat ourselves up and we're very kind of hypercritical, and so it's good to have pressure. I mean it was weird in terms of when we made Shaun of the Dead (2004). There wasn't really that much expectation about us making a film. There was from people who liked our TV show, but you know we could kind of do it under the radar and this time it was a bit different. Even just filming it on location was kind of interesting because you'd have people watching the entire time. Show less «

In terms of, like, the homaging and spoofing and stuff, I mean, obviously... it's weird 'cause, like, I mean, there are homages and there are kind of, like, skits on things, but I think the sensory joke with Spaced (1999) and the reason that I think it kinda has a charm to it... It's kinda the point of it is not so much that, "Hey, let's do, like, a five minute rip on The Matrix (1999)." -- It's the fact that the characters are so, kind of, like... their lives are so governed by pop culture and media and stuff that they can only think in those terms. So if somebody's having a... breakup with their girlfriend, they imagine it to have the same crushing kind of... feeling as the ending of Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Show less «

[on Spaced (1999)] It's a show by geeks, for geeks.

As dated as Octopussy (1983) is, I'd love to see a version of Quantum of Solace (2008) with Barbara Woodhouse 'Sit!' jokes and Tarzan yodelling sound effects. Show less «

Here's a funny thing. My mum's a big conspiracy theorist and when I was younger, in that way when you automatically take the opposite view to your parents because you're a sullen and idiotic teenager, when my mother would come out with wild conspiracies about our hometown, I would just, like, formally reject it. She had so many stories of, like, conspiracy - and some of them very real in terms of corruption and gangsters, and some of them a lot more fanciful, like the idea that there might be unicorns and aliens in Glastonbury Tor. But when I was writing Hot Fuzz (2007), I said to my mother, "I want you to write down all the stories that you heard about our town and give it to me." [The result] A fifty page document called "Spooky Doings". I think she was so happy that I'd embraced the conspiracy theorist in her. Show less «

There were zombie films prior to George [George A. Romero], but he pretty much invented the cannibalistic aspect. What we now think of as zombies really are Romero zombies. Show less «

I've always been fascinated by horror films and genre films. And horror films harbored a fascination for me and always have been something I've wanted to watch and wanted to make. Equally, I'm very fascinated by comedy. I suppose the reason that [An American Werewolf in London (1981)] changed my life is that very early on in my film-watching experiences, I saw a film that was so sophisticated in its tone and what it managed to achieve. Show less «