Some people say Muppets and some people say puppets, and I go "Puppets! Muppets! They�re animatronic characters."

They�re exquisitely computerised. All of the animatronic characters have their faces wired so that they have a certain amount of facial movement, like a human. Their eyes are wired, their eyelids are wired, their eyebrows are wired. Once the animatronic characters are switched on they�re so lifelike.

If you told me as a director that I had to talk to this spoon [holds spoon up], and this spoon was an alien creature and had feelings and could talk back, then I�m going to relate to this spoon that way. The beauty of it was that we were relating to [the animatronic creatures] � they�re not alive, but boy, the Jim Henson creature shop sure makes them look incredibly alive.

It�s disconcerting because when they�re switched off they go [limp], and it�s like Rygel�s had a stroke. There was one scene where I had to seduce Rygel � it�s funny now because Rygel and I didn�t have that kind of relationship at all - but this was in the first season where they weren�t quite sure what anyone�s relationship with anyone else was.

It was funny because with filming, if you�re doing a two-shot the camera�s going to favour either one of you at a time. Usually they do a wide shot where you�re both in the frame. Then they come in and they�ll shoot [the other character], the camera over the back of my shoulder and then vice versa, they�ll shoot me, the camera over our [the other character�s] shoulder.

When they were shooting Rygel and I was off-camera, he was animated, his eyebrows were moving, his eyes were sparkling and moving away and his mouth was moving. It was fantastic. But when it was my turn he was switched off, damn it. He only had one operator, who was holding Rygel�s body up and moving his head because the camera saw the back of his head so it had to look as though he was alive and moving.

I had to do the whole scene with Rygel [limp and lifeless] and it was really hard actually, but I did it. Afterwards, I said to the director "You rat, you could have at least had them turn Rygel on for me so that he was animated," and the director said, "Oh, I hadn�t thought of that. Oh no, we must do that in future, sorry".

Often the actor that you�re talking to [in a scene] has to run off and shoot something else, so often we�re acting to just a piece of tape on the side of the camera. So we are very accustomed to acting to anything, but it�s just a little bit disconcerting when you�re acting to an actual actor or character and they�re slumped. It would be like if I was doing a scene with Ben and he was filing his nails or something, or saying his lines and looking somewhere else.