Q:	What's it like performing with something that isn't there?
HL:	(Jokingly) It's Hell! It's gruelling! It isn't actually at all. The truth is that all filmmaking is about imagining something that isn't there, that's almost always the way it happens - if you have to watch the Titanic going down they don't sink the Titanic just so you can look at it, they do it with a tennis ball and you've go to go "Oh my God, all my family are dying" and watch that and imagine it! That's what filmmaking is and this was similar. We had one advantage I think in that we all know what a mouse looks like; I saw Men In Black 2 the other day and they've got to imagine sixty foot tall aliens with nine heads coming out of the subway - and that's nine tennis balls on strings, and that's tricky!
Q:	How much do you choose a film like this because of your own children?
HL:	They're a pretty tough crowd my children actually, they're pretty hard to please. I suppose my main goal is not to embarrass them too much in life, because they've got to go into the playground and look their classmates in the eye and if they've got to deal with other children going "You're Dad's crap!" that would obviously be tough on them! So I suppose it's a factor and I hope I haven't embarrassed them too much. They are pretty quiet on for this actually; they won't tell me - to me they go "yeah, it's alright" - but I happen to know from other sources that they loved the first one and I think they'll like this one more. But the big power I have over my children now is threatening to sing, I can embarrass them into anything now by threatening to sing!
Q:	Did they come onto the set at all?
HL:	They did yes, they came out to Los Angeles when we were shooting there for a couple of weeks and they did come to the set. It was good fun actually, there seemed to be more going on this time. It was fascinating watching them train the falcon, although the real bird only made it into the film as a model. They were training a falcon outside the studio with two chaps who stand first ten feet apart, then fifteen, and going... I don't know, what do you say to a falcon? "Kill" I suppose. And this thing just goes like a bullet, it's just the most beautiful thing.
Q:	Were you tempted to keep any of Mr. Little's very snazzy wardrobe?
HL:	There was one pair of socks I didn't keep...
Q:	How did you feel about wearing those clothes, it's a very particular look?
HL:	"Particular" is a good word, yes [Laughs]. I think Jonathan and I both looked a bit snazzier this time. We both had better glasses and we were both very pleased with that. We looked a bit geeky the first time, and this time there was just a touch of Armani which we were quite pleased with [Laughs] ... But I think the look of this one is terrific.
Q:	Has the huge success of this role lead to others in America?
HL:	I don't know, 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 & then. Finally turned out ankles, I like to think, but ankles none the less! It's hard to say what's directly come of it. Certainly it's great to be involved with something as successful and, particularly in America, that doesn't do any harm, but I'm struggling to think what came from it directly... nothing at all, absolutely nothing!
Q:	What books did you grow up on?
JL:	My favorite book is Savage Sammet the sequel to Old Yellar, about a young American boy and his dog which I really enjoyed. And I like a book I'm reading right now called Artemis Vowel.
HL:	It was Biggles for me, I just finished my last Biggles last week [Laughs], it was great actually, terrific! I never read Stuart Little, in fact I'm not sure it was published over here. Charlotte's Web was, and I had read that but I'm not sure most English people are familiar with Stuart Little. I don't know why that is but it just didn't seem to make it.
Q:	Hugh, with all your writing and film work is there any chance of a return to television and will you be getting back with Stephen Fry at any stage?
HL:	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 probably should have done that but haven't, we just bumble along without ever really planning what we're going to do – although he is directing a film this autumn, his first, and if I don't get a part in that then there are going to be some pretty sharp questions asked! So I hope to be working with him pretty soon.
Q:	Jonathan, are you into soccer and did you watch the World Cup?
JL:	I woke up for one World Cup match because it was shown at three in the morning, and one went at seven and I also woke up that day. But I don't really play soccer, not at all.
Q:	So how were those scenes of the soccer match to shoot?
JL:	George was really bad and I'm not that bad - although I'm still pretty bad!
Q:	Hugh, Would you ever consider moving to the States?
HL:	I don't think so, I've got children in school here and it would be a big upheaval. It would have to be a definite thing; it's a big decision to make. It would have to be for a very rich prize at the end of it – for all of us, all of the family.
Q:	Presumably you have to leave your family behind when you go there to work?
HL:	Yeah, it's a bit rough - although each time they've come out about half way through, which makes it a lot easier. But it is a long, long time to be away.
Q:	Jonathan, as a screen veteran now what do you enjoy the most about acting these days?
JL:	I still enjoy that you can be somebody else and not just yourself everyday, and you get to live somebody else's life, which is pretty interesting.
Q:	How do you fit your schooling around filming?
JL:	I have a tutor on the set and I do three hours a day, every day, and my best subject I would say is social studies. But it's still pretty hard fitting six hours – which I do at home – into three hours, but it's easier because it's one on one and I don't have a lot of other kids in the classroom asking questions. But I do miss my friends.
Q:	What's next for each of you?
HL:	I get very superstitious about talking about things until they've happened, films particularly are frail creatures until they've been done and you're sitting in the cinema watching it. But there's a couple of films anyway, I'll have to leave it there because I think it's bad luck to talk about them.
JL:	I'll actually tell you. I'm doing a film in the fall called When Zachary Beaver Came To Town, it's a great book, I think everyone should read it. And I'm doing it with the director of Like Mike which I just did, and I'm going to have a good time on that.
Q:	Is reading your main hobby?
JL:	No. I do it on planes a lot because I travel a lot. I do basketball twice a year in a league, and baseball twice a year. I like sport.
Q:	Hugh, Mr. Little is the ideal father, have you picked up any tips?
HL:	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 is not the case with me I'm afraid. I'm rather crotchety to put it mildly and something of a let down to my own children! But there we go, I do my best and they're very forgiving, thankfully.
Q:	So it's all acting?
HL:	It is all acting yes. I tried to draw on my own experience of being perfect and found I didn't have very much of it!
Q:	So would you be the kind of father who would rather do the washing up than change the nappy?
HL:	There is no other kind of father [Laughs], anyone who tells you different is fibbing. But I'm sure all parents have done that, all parents have taken the long way home just to miss that. Every now and then we all have to miss a bath time, we'll just go and look at a tree or something, anything [Laughs].
Q:	Jonathan, you've got a video camera here. Do we take that to mean you want to go into directing one day?
JL:	Actually yes, I do a lot of movies on this. It's just my real life because I believe I have a really interesting life and a great time; it's me on the road basically. I'd really like to direct, I'd like to try every aspect behind the camera, and in front of the camera too.
Q:	Would the Little's make good neighbors?
HL:	Well, if you ran out of sugar I'm sure the Little's would send round a truck load, and they're not going to have loud parties. So yes in that sense, they‘re easy going neighbors.
Q:	They do seem to be accumulating a lot of animals though.
HL:	Steady, who are you calling an animal? (laughter) Are we not all therefore creatures? Yes, its an expanding household, we have a young family. But the house can take it, we have space.
Q:	When you were eleven what were your ambitions?
HL:	They changed almost hourly. I was going to open the batting for England, I was going to climb Everest, I was going to be a fighter ace, they just changed all the time. I am I'm afraid a fantasist and I can live many existences simultaneously – which is what I'm doing now, I'm in the Bahamas now! You pass that fork in the road and there is no way now I am going to open the batting for England, which is a shame.
Q:	Your father was an Olympic gold medallist; was that something you aspired to?
HL:	I considered it and had an opportunity but rowing now – any kind of sport now – at an Olympic level requires a commitment which is very different to the sort of commitment he was required to make in 1948 or 1936, which was the first Olympics he went to, in Berlin. Not to say that he wasn't dedicated; he was and he was extremely gifted at it, but sport was an amateur business then. It isn't now and you have to make a very big decision, whatever it is; Geena Davis at one point came very close to making the Olympic team in archery after an incredibly short amount of preparation, only a year or two years. But none the less in order to make a go of it she was having to do that for four, five, six hours a day and that takes over your life, it's a big decision. You can't just decide "I'll play ping pong this year" the way you could in the twenties and thirties, it doesn't happen that way now.
Q:	So would it be stretching credibility a tad to suggest you could have beaten Mr. Redgrave to the five Olympic gold's?
HL:	Yes it would be, that would be pushing it somewhat. But, boy, what a sacrifice he had to make. It seems so frustrating to me – on his behalf – that he had to take five Olympic games in which to do it! Why didn‘t they just give them all to him the first time, and he could have gone on to have done something else? He could have taken up watercolors or something ...
Q:	But you could have been 'Sir Hugh' then!
HL:	Damn it! Oh Well!