After studying in Sheffield, I went down to London to do my post-graduate degree at the National Film and Television School, embarking on the movie that would eventually become 'A Grand Day Out.'

I went back over the sketch books I'd filled at Sheffield for ideas and discovered Wallace and Gromit, except Gromit was a cat then. I made them into Plasticene shapes and started 'A Grand Day Out.' It took me longer than I expected.

I will open an era of grand national unity.

It's very hard to adapt something. You end up changing it too much to make a good movie out of it. I prefer to work with things that are custom made for my kind of animation.

I used to get in trouble at school for day-dreaming.

It's the thing they don't teach you in film school - what happens after you finish your movie.