Morris: "People complain as a hobby"

Chris Morris has reportedly denied that he has ever created anything controversial, adding that people simply "complain as a hobby".

The director, who is behind the jihadi comedy Four Lions, said that his renowned Brass Eye paedophile special only rose to notoriety through the press.

"The place where the Brass Eye special was controversial was in the media. It wasn't controversial in any real context that I understood," he told The Times, adding that the 2,000 complaints to Channel 4 were notched up becase people "like to complain".

"It's not about what they're complaining about: it’s about them wanting to get their rocks off in an imagined domain. To say 'I am momentarily powerful' in an angry world. It's not the issue that matters," the 44-year-old concluded.

During research for the film, Morris spent a lot of time carrying out research into the Muslim world, leading some to believe that he was a cop. "I spoke to students, bouncers, Islamic bankers, anybody that I could meet," he said, adding that he even met a former BNP member who "accidentally" converted himself after buying the Koran.

"Not only that but he ended up working for an organisation which was determined that the whole world, of six billion people, should be ruled by an Islamic caliphate," he said.

Morris also revealed that the most shocking thing about the movie is that it demonstrates findings from his research showing that terror cells function on the basis of "inwardly directed group love, rather than outwardly directed hate".

Four Lions opens in the UK on May 7.