Laurence Owen: Comedy Spotlight

You auditioned for the role of Harry Potter but lost out to a smug dipshit. In an alternative timeline you got the role, and right now you're appearing in piss-poor ghost movies and getting your dick out next to a horse. What other iconic movie character could you play better than the actor who originally got the role?

"In Return Of The Jedi, there's a rebel commander who says, 'We have stolen a small Imperial shuttle.' There's nothing wrong with his performance, but his hair is so intolerably awful that it always takes me right out of the action. It's like they put all four members of ABBA in a blast furnace and reset the mixture into a wig. I'd get George Lucas to do another of his famous CGI hack-jobs and replace 70s Lego hair man with my fairly average face/hair combination. Then people wouldn't be distracted. I'd be doing the film a service."

One of the biggest problems I have with Disney movies is Aladdin's total absence of nipples. I realise that on the scale of world issues like war, famine, poverty and 99% of Frozen, this probably sounds stupid. And yet it genuinely really bothers me. What Disney-related things absolutely rustle-your jimmies?

"Dead parents. Cunning ol' Walt discovered early on that killing one or both of the lead character's parents is a brilliant shortcut to emotion without having to do any of that boring character development stuff, and they've just never stopped. You can count the number of Disney princesses with a full set of parents on one dainty little hand. Seriously lazy. Starts to make everything feel like an X Factor sob story."

Pick three important events from your life, and name the song that would accompany them – like Stuck in the Middle with You, while you tortured and murdered a smug, successful boy-wizard.

"1. Recently getting married to my ace lady in Disney World, Florida (Soundtrack: the on-ride music from Splash Mountain, which sounded like friendly woodland creatures repeatedly singing "show us your balls," but probably wasn't).

"2. Standing at a urinal next to Roger Taylor from Queen. I now know how gifted a gentleman he is, but that's between me and Rog (Soundtrack: Queen - I Want To Break Free).

"3. On a set in 1997, my original Darth Vader figure was stolen by a pre-megastardom Jude Law. He saw me playing with my Star Wars toys, and came over for what seemed like an innocent geek-bond with a child. Seconds later Darth Vader was missing. He definitely knew no-one would believe me and he seized his chance. I'm still furious. (Soundtrack: John Williams - The Emperor's Throne Room)."

Imagine taking an existing, very-non-musical movie, and turning it into an extremely-musical movie. Personally I'm drawn towards Oldboy but only because I gave the question 10 seconds thought and because 'incest' rhymes easily with 'ain't the best'. But then again, I really fancy seeing tightly choreographed dance-numbers in a musical version of Robocop. What movies aren't screaming out for the Broadway treatment but should get it anyway?

"That's easy. John Carpenter's The Thing. Amazing ensemble numbers! All the weird, mangled flesh-creatures could be like a Muppet chorus: the head with spider's legs could do the high notes, the multi-headed dog can be a barbershop quartet, the big jaws that open up from the guy's chest can do the comedy farty low notes. Add some doo-wop tunes from Alan Menken and BOOM – it's an off-Broadway smash."

I only just discovered that they actually made two sequels to the movie Splash (apparently there was still much to learn about trying to lay a fish-woman). In your opinion, what films have gone one sequel too far, and which haven't gone far enough?

"There are now 16 films in the Land Before Time series, which is surely 15 films too many. That damn meteor needs to hurry up and extinctify those soppy bastards. As for not going far enough, I'm really holding out for a sequel to Dunston Checks In. The tagline could be, 'Things just got even more Orang-u-tastic!' You're welcome."

I turn 39 this month. It is my deepest regret that I've never fucked the sorcery out of a witch, like James Bond did in Live & Let Die. Do you have any similar movie-related regrets?

"I have never sucked spaghetti out of a dog's mouth."