Chris Martin

I do worry – a lot.

I always dream about other musicians. And they’re never interested in hanging out with us. It’s like being at school and the bigger boys don’t want to play with you!

Maybe it’s because I’m English, but in terms of how people perceive us I only pick up on the negative side of it.

What makes us a bit nervous is, in this instant age, to release something that might take more than one listen. Where everything is instantly judged on YouTube or something! It’s a bit like releasing a horse and cart on a racetrack.

I’m competitive with anyone who writes a good song – I don’t care if it’s a band or solo artist or whoever.

I think that the fact that a relationship becomes public is a bit of a bummer. Because it can distract from the real reason why you’re together, which is that you just like each other.

My career has been a combination of hard work and timing. Working with Stevie Wonder at the Kennedy Center Honors was timing. The Tonight Show was timing. Carnegie Hall, that was timing. My marriage was timing. I was ready, I wanted to know what it was like.

I don’t have a sound bite for everything.

I was not popular in high school, I know every actress says that, but really, I was a big geek.

I realized what Led Zeppelin was about around the end of our first U.S. tour. We started off not even on the bill in Denver, and by the time we got to New York we were second to Iron Butterfly, and they didn’t want to go on!

It is a little insulting that you’re trying to appeal to adult women voters the same way that Mattel attempts to appeal to eight year olds. And at least Barbie’s pink bus had the good sense to unfold into a sweet hot tub and party den combo. … The only way it could be even more patronizing is if its wheels were giant NuvaRings and they refused to let women drive it.

In the last series, we set up a church [to expose televangelists and the ease of avoiding tax through establishing a religious organisation]. It took a lot of legal advice and months of gathering correspondence with one pastor. In terms of the UK, I’m not sure what the Inland Revenue’s position on churches is. The IRS is very much of the opinion that all churches, whatever their form, operate tax free. How would I make sense of what we achieved? We achieved nothing! We achieved $70,000 in single [donations], a four-foot wooden penis and five vials of human sperm. Although a lot of people would consider that a decent year’s work, I suppose. It’s a pretty impressive room full of tat.

I’m often mistaken for Spanish or Latin descent.

What I’m doing is making sure that I have a balance, and that allows me, I think, to be a better actor and to more easily and quickly access all of the emotions on the scale. I make sure that I read a book on the weekend or read something or do my knitting or do the things that I need to do for myself, like ‘Game of Thrones.’ Get that balance.

One Christmas, when Freddie and I were flatmates in Kensington, we were trying to cook Christmas dinner but all we had was a packet of bread sauce that you make with water. We used to dream of a can of beans. (…) At Ridge Farm, when we weren’t working we would swim, play bad tennis, bad snooker and be beaten at table tennis by Freddie. I think he had been the champion at his boarding school and I never, ever saw him lose a game. That summer was more like a youth club rather than wild parties. In the evenings we would go down to the pub, come back to the barn and play more music.

I am constantly amazed by Tina Fey. And I am Tina Fey.

The things that people do come so easy to me. I could do it in my sleep. But I’m such a perfectionist that when something is too easy to me, I actually feel guilty.

Confidence is everything in this business.

Lowest rated Oscars in HISTORY. Problem is, we don’t have Stars anymore – except your President (just kidding, of course)!

To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone.

Cocaine is God’s way of saying that you’re making too much money.