Top 66 Johnny Vegas Quotes

My forte is playing drunks down the ages. When my agent rings me about a role, I don’t ask what the part is, but what century it’s in.

My work’s never been accepted by my family, but it’s something I’ll always carry on with.

For the greater good, I thought I should be a spiritual leader for people for some reason.

I used to be good with kids, but as I get older, I’m grumpy and terrible with them. As for doing a gig at a 6-year old’s birthday party, you couldn’t pay me enough.

I thought I could play the hellraiser and then put ‘Johnny Vegas’ back in his box. I found popularity through self-destruction. The more you damage yourself, the more people are drawn to you, and that can be quite addictive. It is not a lifestyle you can maintain.

We had a week off in the middle of shooting, but as soon as everyone stopped, we all went down with six different types of flu and other unmentionable diseases.

Oh, I’m terrible at travel.

I’ve spent lots of time in London, I studied in London, I like London. It’s just not my home.

I’ve always said that with kids’ TV that people get stuck in it from drama school but that’s not fair because I know myself that when you go in creatively, kids are so much more open to ideas. You’re so much freer to mess about and try things.

I came from a very loving home, had a happy life with no great aspirations, but going to the seminary changed me. There was a chunk of my childhood missing. Once I’d realised it wasn’t for me, I still felt a tremendous pressure to continue for fear of letting everybody down.

The cheese board is my big treat at Christmas that I have to deny myself during the rest of year.

Being ‘Johnny’ was almost like an out of body experience. I thought he was just a character that I’d created and could quite easily step away from, but it was much more difficult than that.

With stand-up you’ve just got that one chance. Audiences can be quite fickle.

I used to attract a lot of feeders. I’d be quite happy to be locked in someone’s flat and fed liquidised burgers.

I’ve always been looking for other people’s approval.

Had I become a priest, the sermons would’ve been electric!

I think it sort of dawns on you that if you’re not gigging constantly you’re not actually relevant. You may be relevant to a different part of the media now, to television commissioners and editors, but to a young live-comedy audience you’re not, really.

There is something more spiritual to us than what we are on this earth, but how you access it I’m not sure.

If you write, produce and direct, you own things and see them through to the end.

I always feel like an interloper when I do serious drama. It’s my own paranoia.

Writing a book about yourself is like therapy, and you go ‘Oh My God, that’s the reason that happened.’ Writing about it, you’re forced to really examine things.

I think if you’re at the point where you’re popular enough to sell your wedding photos to OK! Magazine then you don’t need the money.

I avoid any kind of organised trips as that’s one of my bugbears.

My first holiday to San Francisco in 1998-99 was supposed to be a two-week vacation but I ended up staying five weeks and nearly didn’t come home.

I struggle as a writer, and I’m convinced that if I was at school now, I’d be termed as having ADS. Two minutes and I’m drifting.

I’m getting positive feedback for my acting so we’ll see if any other interesting parts come up.

I was loved as a kid; I was raised with more love and emotional support than most folks could wish for… my memories aged nought to ten… are all bound up together in a mesh of innocence and fun.

I also want to return to doing stand-up. I’ve become frightened of live audiences. This is a really telling sign that I need to go back on the comedy circuit again.

I’ve got little ankles and a bit of a belly, so it makes me look rather an egg on legs.

You can’t be a proper comic unless you’ve been out on stage and felt the fear.

I am very proud of what ‘Johnny’ achieved in stand-up comedy because he believed entirely in giving an audience the best kick he could. But he was someone who was quite detrimental to my health, both emotionally and physically.

I’ve been offered all the reality TV shows but have turned them down. If I did it as ‘Johnny,’ there’d be no jungle left! It was really hard regaining control of myself, so I am reluctant to let ‘Johnny’ back out of the box.

Being behind the camera is where I feel comfortable. I’ve found something that I feel I, as ‘Michael,’ can be as confident in as ‘Johnny’ was on the stage. It’s great being part of the creative process. You’re right at the start of an idea, and you get to see it all the way through till the end.

You know, there’s that temptation in interviews to make yourself sound – well, to give yourself a bit of mystery.

I do need to explore my faith, because it has got lost over the years and it has been kind of tainted through experience. But I also know it’s enriched my life, my dad being a Catholic.

I found popularity through self-destruction, and that can be quite addictive.

I use very few muscles at the best of times.

My agent once said, ‘You’re not very driven.’ And it’s true. I’m not the type to ring up and go, ‘Get me this part!’

I think I’m realising more and more that I’ve got a job to do and I can’t be doing the big nights out and working to my full potential the next day. I feel much better for it.

You can sway an audience if you win the women over. The gentlemen will follow ’cause they can be so foolish like that at times, they are easily led.

If an original piece of wardrobe came up from Star Wars, I’d probably spend a lot of money on it.

In credits, I’m ‘Michael’ sometimes now, but people know you as something, so there’s no point fighting it. ‘Squiggle,’ you’ll always be ‘Prince,’ and ‘The Rock,’ just accept it. I want to move on, but not that much. So I’m still known as ‘Johnny Vegas.’

This autocue was obviously written for someone else and I’ve been brought in at the last minute.

There’s a domino effect with certain things you say.

There’s lots of stuff about me being a fan of Cliff but not being gay. Which suggests that he is, but he’s not. Anyway, this is Channel 4, let their lawyers sort it out.

I still give myself the right to be highly critical of others, though.

It can be tough as a jobbing actor.

There’s this idea that it has to be made in London. But we’ve got everything up here, and if you’ve got comics who are gifted because of where they’re from, you shouldn’t drag them away from that natural resource.

I actually enjoy being heckled; it keeps it interesting, and I think it is a nice feeling for people once they have left the show.

I don’t want to demonise ‘Johnny.’ I was really proud of what he achieved. Especially within stand-up. He was quite a unique voice. I will always possibly be trading off ‘Johnny’s name, but there’s a lot more things that I’m able to do now – the strengths that ‘Michael’ can bring to it.

I’ve got too much respect for stand-ups to call myself one.

I couldn’t be ‘Johnny’ in front of a camera in acting jobs and behind the camera I like to be ‘Michael.’ With directing, you can’t do it by halves. There’s a lot of reflection, and I have found that I, as ‘Michael,’ thrive on it. It’s lovely coming home and feeling that stuff from a day’s work as myself.

We all have days where we can’t pronounce things or give it the emotion it deserves.

It’s lovely being a parent and being in a strong marriage with somebody who is your best friend.

I am a big fan of smelly cheeses but the rest of the family don’t seem to be particularly keen on them.

I believe that Britain is becoming more class-conscious, and I quake at the very idea of Old Etonians ruling the world again.

I had a massive amount of self-belief when I did stand-up.

People are always asking, ‘Where does Michael Pennington end and Johnny Vegas begin,’ and you’re going, ‘It’s not like that: it’s blurred right across.’

I love the way my weight fluctuates in the newspapers. It was 18 stone and then people look at a bad picture of me and add a few more stone on. I think the highest was 22 stone.

It is easy for me to love myself, but for ladies to do it is another question altogether.

I sang ‘American Pie’ a lot in my stage set. It had a knack of uniting an audience in a sing-along. It’s a clever song about American history but wrapped in a fantastic tune.

I’ve got my finger in a lot of pies.

Up North you are holding your own. Everyone considers themselves a comedian.

Baldness is visually enough of a stigma as it is without a big sweaty bloke on stage pointing it out.

When I wasn’t as attractive as I am now, I suffered at the hands of cruel children and their taunts until I realised that confidence and a bit of aesthetic care can overcome that.

You always hear people saying, ‘I hope I’m not turning into my dad’, but I’d be honoured if I became half as decent a bloke as he is.