[on the award-winning Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer (1986) pop video] Part of the brief in a way was to look like a fourteen-year-old kid had made it in their attic and in a way that was the way it ended up because of the speed that we did it at. It bridged the gap between pop and fine art and it changed the face of pop videos that, I think. I don't think that's overstating it, I think it did.

Maybe I love Gromit because he's the dog I've never had. What dog could match him? He's the ideal. He doesn't bark, and he has your tea and dinner ready for you when you arrive home.

It's quite a challenge when most animated movies have fast-paced, wall-to-wall dialog and ours features a silent, plasticine dog. But I think people see Wallace and Gromit as something akin to an elderly couple. These two know each other so well. Nothing can split them apart.

Plasticine was available when I was a teenager and started doing animation. I wanted to be like Disney, trying to film with plastic cels, but it was all too expensive. I didn't have enough money to buy cels, at least not enough to make more than four-and-half seconds of animation. But Plasticine was around, user-friendly and available to the masses. It was great because all you needed was camera, an Anglepoise lamp and a table. And you would make whatever you like come out of a blob of Plasticine.