Jim Piddock quotes:

There's no traditional three act structure - or beginning, middle and end - to a family tree. By its nature, it has almost infinite different branches, or episodes, to explore in every direction.

The truth is very few of us are related to Napoleon or Cleopatra. Although, those are bad examples as I am actually descended from both of them.

Chris O'Dowd is a very special talent. He's one of those very, very rare actors who can be the clown, or he can be the straight man playing off the clown, in a scene.

Most of my writing work has been in film. I have done some TV, but most of it has been in film.

I'm an old school actor in the sense. More and more now, I play myself as I get older. Even as a writer, I never got typecast. I've always bounced from project to project or initiated my own things.

I have immense admiration for the writer/directors and director/actors who just seamlessly do both jobs at the same time.

People say that you want to be varied in your career, and I've done so many things and am very appreciative. But, the one thing I've never done and wanted to do was to be a regular on a TV show, where you get 22 weeks of the year to develop and play a character. I've done arcs of five or eight episodes on shows, but I'd like to have a character that's rich enough and deep enough to want to explore and live with for a few years. Playing the same character, but doing different scenes seems very exciting to me.

People have really different methods of working. Some people prepare tons and tons of material, literally on paper, and they will use as much of it as they can. Some people prepare various lines in their heads and various avenues to go. And some people show up literally going, "I know who I am and I know what the situation is, but I'm just going to see what comes out."

I don't care if I'm funny. I just want people to believe I'm that guy.

It's so wonderful and creative to go in and tell the wardrobe department what you want to wear and how you want your hair to look. That's great, for an actor. The actors get to do more than they would, normally.

In all of our lives, we know some boring people, but we don't want to see them on television. In our families, we have some very odd people who have odd neurosis. All of us are really strange people.

More and more, I play myself, as I get older. Even as a writer, I never got typecast. I've always bounced from project to project, or initiated my own things. I was never known as the guy who wrote romantic comedies or sci-fi, or whatever, but that's fun to me. The first two films I ever had made, as a writer, were both thrillers, which was great. There was nothing funny about either of them, or not intentionally. I actually love that.

I did always want to write. And then, when I left New York, where I was working very steadily in the theater - I had done three Broadway shows in a row and was a bit burnt out - I moved out to L.A. and I was not working very much. I came in cold and I'd work for a week, but then I'd have a month or two off. I thought, "I'm going to go crazy unless I actually do write." Like a lot of things in life, it was a situation that came about by circumstances.