One thing I love about you is that you look like a “normal” guy, instead of a model. Why do you think Hollywood is so obsessed with casting beautiful people? Azzaazza
I think it’s the sunlight out here. It’s very harsh and unforgiving. So you’ve gotta have an unforgiving level of beauty to exist. Whereas England has that wonderful gloom which lights up the crevices and the crags on people’s faces. So you end up valuing the acting way more than the look.

Reviews say that I Love My Dad is “cringe comedy”. I find films like that difficult to watch unless I’m eating rich beef sausages. Do you have any food crutches that get you through a film? suchaphool
Really strong tea and hard sourdough pretzels. I can crunch ’em and drown out the dialogue.

How do you strike a balance between joy and outrage, especially given our slow-rolling apocalypse? zagnutt
I try to accept each one as they come. There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of real outrage every now and then, as long as it hasn’t permanently chased joy from you.

If you could strike one movie from your filmography, which would you go for? SalfordianBlue
I don’t judge films the way a viewer judges them. They were all really fun experiences, even if some of the movies didn’t come out great. I wouldn’t wanna lose any of those memories. So I’m not striking any of them. Keeping ’em all!

How do you win over a challenging audience when performing standup? VerulamiumParkRanger
If you’re excited to be there and you make them excited, you wrap them up in your excitement. I’m always happy to be in front of an audience. I’m never like: “Oh God, these fucking people.” I want to have a good time and if I’m not having a good time, no one is.

You said in 2007 that you believe the good people outnumber the bad in this world and always will – the bad just get more press. Now that we’ve seen Trump, a pandemic, January 6, the invasion of Ukraine, the murder of innocent women by the Iranian government … I’m wondering if you still believe that? TooMuchRain
Here’s the thing, though. If there were more bad people than good, then any one of those single incidents would’ve been able to metastasise and take over the entire planet and end us. And the fact that all of those happened at the same time and we’re still here means that, with each of those disasters, good people showed up. Good people made sacrifices. So the fact that we had a confluence of awful events on top of one another and we’re still here I think, if anything, proves my point even more.

The ultimate tipping point is complacency and embracing loneliness as something that can’t be surmounted. Not any exterior disaster, be it social or environmental. There’s been way worse environmental, cultural threats, both existential and real, that we’ve overcome. So as long as those two things are there, I think we can overcome. The human race is always able to surprise itself.

Fairly sure that some baristas have murdered your name on coffee cups. Any spectacular failures in this area? gil78
Yeah, there was one; God, I can’t even remember. It was like “Pavilion”. It was kind of beautiful it was so off the base. I loved it. But I couldn’t care less. I wanna get outta there. I want my caffeine. I get a large English breakfast tea, two bags, with a little bit of honey. They have Tazo there, but I love PG Tips.

In your book, Silver Screen Fiend, you write about one of your favourite films, Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru. Have you seen the recent remake, Living, with Bill Nighy? If so, what did you think? AquilaSonofM
Not yet. I wanna see it in a cinema. I know that movie’s gonna wipe me out. I’ve seen the original probably half a dozen times. That final image of him just in the snow on the swing … I’m gonna get all choked up now. So I know that I just have to brace myself. I’m gonna need to budget time to see it and have time after where I’m not doing anything and I can absorb it.

Bill Nighy is in that great tradition of British actors who do so much while showing so little. With real emotion, you rarely actually let it fly. You have to sit on top of it and try to keep it together. And it’s the keeping it together – there’s something so human and beautiful about it. Even though he’s played a lot of cold, reptilian, evil characters, there is so much humanity in the eyes and the face.

Is it wrong to think Americans today don’t repress their emotions in the way that people in Britain or Japan in 1953 [when the films are set] did?
You just named two cultures that went through a war and a humbling and a rebuilding. And I don’t think America has really had that yet. So it’s almost like we’re trying to keep that humbling away by being the biggest and the loudest. But you gotta remember before England’s humbling, they were the biggest and the loudest and the proudest, and so were Japan and Germany. And Japanese acting is very open and emotional. There’s a lot of really raw emotions. So I think it has to do more with what the national consciousness has gone through.

But I think the fall and the humbling has made them both way richer cultures. In America, we still haven’t gotten to the idea of the White House being a wonderful symbol and it also having been built by slaves; we’re not comfortable with the contradictions. I think London and Japan and a lot of cultures are very open about their contradictions. Germany teaches its kids about the Holocaust. We’re trying not to teach our kids about slavery. That really tells you where we are on the insecurity scale.

A country is healthy when it’s able to own its shit. I don’t think America is there yet. We got close in the late 70s and then we got scared and turned to Ronald Reagan and this cult of what I think Clive James called “psychotic optimism”.

Are you one of the contenders for the US’s unofficial nerd laureate? MarcoPoloMint
I think I’d be in the nerd laureate court. I don’t know if I’d be nerd laureate. I’d be one of the courtiers.

If you could choose, would you be the next James Bond or the next Doctor? Gelion
Definitely Doctor Who. Less having to work out. You wear heavier clothes and you don’t have to worry about having your shirt off.

Did the death of your wife change your standup topics? How has humour helped you and your daughter heal? padapoo
Everything changes your standup topics. But I definitely had to address it in the special I did, Annihilation. I tried doing some sets where I never addressed it and it came out even creepier, like: ‘What, what’s going on? Does he not know what happened?’ But I think everything changes your art. The good, the bad, the horrifying and the sublime. Recently, what’s changed it is ageing and knowing that I’m not the new thing any more. My daughter’s a teenager now. I’m the co-star of this amazing life about to happen.

I Love My Dad is available on digital download on 23 January.

This article was amended on 20 January 2023 to correct the spelling of Ikiru.