I had done quite a bit of stage when I was younger, local stuff, musicals. Then I started professionally, I suppose, when I was 11, in London, in the West End, which was already huge for me.
My acting started with musicals in elementary school, so singing is something I've always done, never done professionally - so you're not going to find me on "The Voice" or anything - but it is something that I have a lot of fun doing, and can do well enough to keep up with people in shows.
I mostly did musicals and concerts when I was younger, and then I realized I don't quite have the voice for it, so I went into acting, which I enjoy more.
Between 18 and 26 I acted professionally, on the stage and a little bit on television. Acting is okay, but it's quite pressurized. Then I went to England - I wanted to reinvent myself.
I don't mind it when people come up to me and say, 'Well done.' That's lovely. The bit that's weird is stuff like... I've had a load of eBay people hounding me. Just sort of getting you to sign stuff which they can then sell.
I suppose being a bit of an antisocial weirdo definitely honed my skills as a soloist. It gave me a lot more opportunities to solo lots of easy routes, which in turn broadened my comfort zone quite a bit and has allowed me to climb the harder things without a rope that I've done now.
I'd done stage musicals for quite a few years, starting with 'Grease' in Auckland.
I'm not looking at any stage stuff at all. I'm going to give that a break for a while, if not forever, because I've done a huge amount of stage stuff and if the possibility of working in pictures comes along, I'd be silly if I didn't grab it.
My job, professionally, is tapping into stuff. We've all got it. But, I just am fortunate enough that, beyond the age of 11, it's what I do professionally.
In my career, I've had kind of a strange trajectory as an actor. I started out doing movies and theater and stuff, but then I had a terrible problem with stage fright as an actor on stage, and I quit stage acting for a long, long time.
I dreamt of becoming a ballet dancer. I studied with the Royal Academy of London for 11 years, and that did not pan out, but my love for being on stage was born there. And then, I actually went to drama school in Paris, France. That's where it first started.
I started in '88 to play House music, it was a huge revolution for me. I went to London and I saw a DJ on stage and that was crazy at the time. I was one of the really respected and famous DJs in Paris, but they would never show me. I was hidden. A DJ on stage and people dancing and facing the DJ, looking at him? I was like 'wow!'
I am very keen to take on a 'West End' show soon, as I haven't done much theatre, and that would be amazing. It is quite liberating to be on stage night after night.
What you have to do as a comedian, that I suppose is quite difficult, is you have to end it. All the stuff that I've ever done in the past - all the tours - no matter how good it was last year or the year before, that's gone. What exists this year only exists in this time, and then it will be gone.
I grew up in the West End, so my whole background was living among theatres and musicals and the West End's coffee bars and clubs. It's kind of obvious that one day I should do something like that.
There's something about doing theatre in London - it sinks a little bit deeper into your soul as an actor. It's something about the tradition of theatre, about performing on the West End stage.
My dreams of taking the West End by storm as a dancer flickered but then faded; my father's ambition to see me in a steady office job was tried and abandoned. But I had won a national speaking award, had stood for election to the local council, had begun to travel and took a job working for the Labour Party.