How did you deal with acting to thin air?
It was gruelling...[laughs] No, it wasn't at all. The truth is that film-making is all about imagining something that isn't there. If you had to watch the Titanic going down, they don't sink a ship just so you can look at it, they do it with a tennis ball and you've got to watch it and pretend that your family is dying. So acting in this was similar. But we did have the advantage that we knew what a mouse looks like! In the case of something like "Men in Black", they've got to imagine 60ft aliens with nine heads coming out of the subway, so we had it easy compared to them.
Mr Little is the ideal father, is that true of you in real life?
I'm afraid to say I fall rather short of the ideal in many areas. Mr Little is a good-hearted fellow with endless patience; that's not the case with me, I'm afraid. I'm rather crotchety to put it mildly, and something of a letdown to my own children! But there we go, I do my best and they're very forgiving, thankfully.
Do you choose a film like this because of your own children?
They're a pretty tough crowd, my children. I suppose my main goal is not to embarrass them too much because they've got to go into the playground and look their classmates in the eye, and if they've got other children going "Your Dad's crap!", that would obviously be tough on them! So I hope I haven't embarrassed them too much. In fact I'm told from other sources that they loved the first "Stuart Little" and I think they'll like this one more. Of course they wouldn't admit that to me though!
Has the huge success of this role led to others in America?
I don't know what's happened as a direct result. To be perfectly honest I thought my own part in this film was just being a pair of ankles really, just walking through the frame every now and then. Finely turned out ankles, I like to think, but ankles none the less! Its hard to say what's directly come of it. Certainly its great to be involved with something as successful as this and, particularly in America, that doesn't do any harm, but I'm struggling to think what came from it directly...nothing I think!
With all your writing and film work is there any chance of a return to television and teaming up again with Stephen Fry?
I certainly hope so. We're not very good at planning to be honest, we don't have a Sasco year planner - which is something we keep meaning to get - with the month written on it so we can say 'invade Poland in February'. We just bumble along without ever really planning what we're going to do, although he is directing his first film this autumn and if I don't get a part in that there are going to be some pretty sharp questions asked! So I hope to be working with him pretty soon.
